


Treasure

by sonofabiscuit77



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apocalypse, Dystopia, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Future Fic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:26:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonofabiscuit77/pseuds/sonofabiscuit77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s 2018 and the human race is almost extinct, wiped out by a mutant threat not even the angels saw coming. Sam and Dean live on a military compound, one of the only human communities left still fighting for survival. Dean is one of the military leaders, dedicated to wasting as many of the mutants he can, while Sam, permanently injured and confined to the base, is desperately searching for the answer that will save what’s left of humanity, and finally bring both boys the peace they crave.</p><p>Spoilers up to ep6-18. Future-fic. This goes au from ep6-19. Written for 2011 spn_j2_bigbang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_I have found my treasure in your soul, honey…_

 

They’ve been running for four days; four days since they left his baby on the side of the road, out of gas and with no relief in sight. 

They skid to a halt, thick trees enclosing them in, ominous swaying branches scattering raindrops from the recent shower, clinging to their hair and clothes. Sam braces himself against a tree and leans over, coughing, hacking, spitting phlegm into the dark green undergrowth. Dean bends double, chest bursting, hands locked on his knees, straining for breath. 

He aches all over. So tired, they’re both so tired. He can’t remember ever being this tired. 

Sam straightens and turns to look at him; his mouth a jagged strip of dismay, eyes dry and burning. 

“I can hear them. They’re still coming,” he says. 

Dean curses, kicks viciously at the earth, a bunch of rich wet leaves, broken up soil and twigs scattering. _“Fuck! Jesus fuck!”_

“Dean, c’mon.” Sam sounds exhausted, resigned. “We gotta keep moving.” 

Dean blinks back at him, feeling suddenly like crying, like gnashing his teeth and ramming his fists against the nearest tree, like throwing back his head and screaming at the sky. At Castiel, to come back, to take them, that he’s sorry for what he said – he’s had enough – he can’t anymore. They just can’t. They’re done. 

_“Dean!”_ Sam hisses. 

Dean jerks his head towards his brother. Sam’s re-shouldered the backpack, huge hands curled around the canvas straps. Why are they even carrying it? What’s the goddamn point now? They’re both fucked, they’re completely screwed. How much longer can they keep running? 

Sam jogs forward, grabs onto his arm, making fists in Dean’s sleeve. 

“Dean! C’mon! We gotta go! _Now!”_

He’s not giving up. Sam’s not giving up. 

“Dean, c’mon, I’m not doing this without you.” 

And that’s the answer: they keep running. They keep running because they have to. They keep running until they both can’t. 

He takes a deep breath, and sets off after Sam. 

He keeps his brother in sight, his eyes locked on the curve of his shoulders, on the backpack thumping against the small of his back. Sam spares a look over his shoulder, eyes frightened and pleading, edging Dean on. 

“Stick with me! Please, Dean, c’mon! Hurry!” Edge of hysteria and helplessness in his voice. 

Dean tries to push, tries to force his deadened limbs to obey, tries to eat up the ever increasing feet between him and his brother. 

And underneath it all, underneath his pounding feet and pounding heart, he can still hear them, getting closer, gaining on them, never stopping, never fucking stopping. 

He ghosts his fingers over his pocket, the solid outline of his one remaining clip. Just that one clip left. Not enough to take out what’s behind them, but enough to do what he has to. 

His lungs burn – no they’re past that – they’re like charcoal, breath fighting to come through the dried up husks. Thumping, throbbing pulse in his neck and he can’t remember a time when he didn’t ache, he can’t remember what it was like to not feel like this – like every pore in his body’s on fire. 

Sam’s disappearing into the trees, the thick heavy darkness eating him up and pulling him away from Dean. The two of them surrounded and enclosed by trees, the eerie, wooded claustrophobia sucking them in, and why are they here? Why did they run into the goddamn woods? What the fuck were they thinking? 

Sam cries out, and collapses to the ground.

Dean throws himself down beside his brother, words blubbering from his mouth, incoherent and panicked: “Sammy! Get up! C’mon! Get up, Sam!” 

“Dean,” Sam chokes. He twists his face into Dean’s shoulder, claws at Dean’s body. “Dean, Dean! I can’t move. Fuck, I can’t move! Dean, my leg!” 

Dean’s heart skips, stutters and stops. For a second he forgets how to breathe. Then he blinks, the world rushes back into focus and he sees it. 

Sam’s trapped. Metal jaws, wicked, rusted contraption clamped around his left leg. Dean crawls down the length of his brother’s body, frantic panic making him sloppy, making him fumble, trip and grope at the iron spokes. He can’t see it right; he can’t make it out, his brain refusing to work. The only real thing that Sam’s trapped. Sam can’t move, and those things are still coming. 

Blood seeps through Sam’s jeans, soaking the denim, an oil slick of purple-brown-red, sopping, warm and wet and if Dean doesn’t do something right the fuck now then Sam’s gonna bleed out. Sam’s gonna leave him behind. 

He fumbles, scuffles fingers over the iron clamps as Sam shakes and struggles, face screwed into something unintelligible, crumpled and wet and white with pain. Dean’s own fingers are bleeding, scrabbling uselessly, nails torn and shredded as he cries out in frustration.

“I can’t – it won’t – Sammy! I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” 

“Dean – Dean – no –s-stop! It’s okay - Dean…” Sam’s reaching out, clutching onto him, pulling him in. His face is wet, sweat and tears and smeared blood. So much blood everywhere, red leaves beneath them, sticky and clinging. “Dean – you gotta go – just – go – leave me. Please, go – now!” 

He’s begging, tears rolling down his cheeks, red nose, white skin, blue lips, hair black as tar, sculpted to his head with sweat and rain. 

“They’re coming, Dean. They’re gonna get me – I can’t move. You gotta go – save yourself – please, Dean – just go!” 

“No, no, no, Sammy, no. Sam, no…” just that one syllable over and over. He’s not leaving. He’s not leaving Sam to die alone. 

“Dean, please! I can’t watch you die again – don’t make me – please – go! Don’t make me watch you die again.” 

He falls back, sprawling, shaking hands fumbling at his holster. He draws out his Colt, holds it out between them like an offering. 

“Here, Sammy, here. You don’t gotta. I got enough bullets. One for you. One for me. You can go first. I’m here. I got it.” 

A noise from the bushes and they’re here, they’re coming. Drumming… pounding… reverberating through the earth, closer, nearer, catching up. 

Dean stares at his brother, drinks him in. This might be it: his last sight of Sam. He’s so pale, etched in blood and ethereally beautiful, fat slimy tears dripping from his jaw. Dean gulps, strangled heart beating gunfire fast in his chest. He pulls Sam in, holds him close, presses his face to his brother’s shoulder. 

“No,” he whispers. “No, Sam. Not going anywhere.” 

He raises his gun, pushes the barrel against Sam’s temple, into his cow-licked hair. 

Sam clutches him tight, body rigid and eyes squeezed closed. 

They’re here. He can see them from the corner of his eye, a hideous mass of moving tumorous flesh. Only twenty yards away – fifteen – ten– 

“Do it, Dean. Do it.” 

His arm is shaking, his clothes drenched in sweat and rain and his brother’s blood. His finger caresses the trigger. 

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Machine gun fire shakes the air around them. Dean rolls to the ground, pulling Sam with him, curling his body tight around his brother’s, burying them both into wet soil. 

Underneath him Sam goes still, and for a terrible, endless second he thinks he’s done it. He did pull the trigger. He did kill his brother. 

“Sam?” his mouth shakes over the word. Heart-throbbing terror, fingers scuffling to find his brother’s pulse, press his cheek against his brother’s mouth. It’s there. Oh God, thank God, thank Jesus. It’s there: unconscious, shallow puff-puffs of faint breath against Dean’s skin. 

Sam’s not dead. 

They’re both still alive. 

He lifts his head, and blinks at the scene before them. 

Two guys are approaching. Soldiers dressed in military fatigues and cradling assault rifles. 

“Hey! Are you guys okay?” One of them calls out. 

He swallows hard, numbly shakes his head. “No, no, my brother’s hurt – something got him.” 

“Shit, Mellor, that fucking trap!” The other guy curses. 

They run towards them, the first guy sinks to the ground by Sam’s leg, hands working expertly at the evil metallic jaws that defeated Dean. 

He watches through dazed vision as they work Sam’s leg free. Sam’s long, beautiful leg, twisted, broken, torn, bathed in blood. 

He watches, cradling Sam’s head in his lap as they fasten a tourniquet and stem the bleeding. He blinks, tears tumble down his cheeks, drip fat and sticky onto Sam’s still face. He bends his head, presses his lips to Sam’s cold mouth, whispers: “Don’t go. Don’t leave me. It’ll be okay, Sam – just – not yet, okay. We’re not done yet.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Three years later…_

 

“Red Leader, come in, Red Leader, this is Command.” 

Dean snatches up his radio from his utility belt and depresses the button to speak. “This is Red Leader.” 

“Red Leader, you want to tell me why the hell you’re not back yet? Your team was due to check in two hours ago.” 

He grits his teeth at Weiner’s officious tone and keeps his voice even as he answers: “We’re checking out Bravo Sectors Four and Five. We’ll be back when I’m happy they’re secured. Over and out.” 

He thumbs off the radio before Weiner has a chance to respond and slides it back into place on his utility belt. 

“Let’s roll!” he growls, slamming his palm against the side of the Jeep. He watches his team jump back into the bed of the Jeep before he slides into the front alongside Jackson. “Well, what ya waitin’ for? A freakin’ invitation?” 

She rolls her eyes at him and starts the engine. They pull out, bumping and jostling over the rough terrain as they follow the line of trees designating the natural divide between Alpha Sector Two and Bravo Sector Four. In the back, the rest of Red Team – twelve men and women – line the bench seats, sitting shoulder to shoulder, rifles standing barrel-side down between their knees, expressions guarded and alert. 

He curls his hand around his own Colt resting in his lap, gaze locked on the countryside spooling out in front of them through the bug-spattered windshield. 

“Boss…” Jackson mutters. 

“I see them,” Dean says. His eyes narrow in on the flicker of movement a couple of fields ahead of their position. He grazes his thumb over the safety, licks his lips. “Alright, stop here.” 

She slices the brakes on, mud flying up around the wheels and splattering the sides of the vehicle. He climbs out the cab, rests one arm on the roof and squints in the direction of the moving shapes. They’re coming into focus, nine… ten… eleven in total, swarming through the bushes up ahead, long grass and weeds flattening and swaying as they surge forwards, misshapen bodies almost doubled over in a grotesque parody of four-legged animals. Their mouths hang open, gaping and slavering, necks twisted towards the skies, animalistic howls catching on the damp breeze as they head straight for Dean and his team. 

He flicks a glance over his shoulder; the guys have already taken up their positions, kneeling on the bench seats and leaning over the sides of the Jeep with rifles raised, primed and ready for the kill. He can see Jackson from the corner of his eye, fingers tapping a nervous drum-beat against the steering wheel, a stray lock of dark hair hanging down over the mottled scar on her left temple. She’s got her assault rifle on her lap, ready to snatch it up and use it should it become necessary. It shouldn’t. This will be an easy kill. 

He turns his attention back to the approaching enemy. He raises his .45, takes aim, shouting the order: _“Fire!”_

The rattle of machine gun fire shakes the Jeep as they all let loose. The closest creature crumples to the ground; spurts of blood and chunks of flesh and bone rendering and tearing through the air as the bullets rip through the hideous, deformed bodies. He gets off another couple of shots – headshots both times – grimly pleased when he sees his two targets drop. 

It’s over in less than ten seconds. 

He lowers his arm, weapon still enclosed tightly in his fist. Behind him, the guys are jumping down from the Jeep, voices raised in jubilant relief. Bryce, Koopowitz and Navarro jog towards the bodies, rifles hooked over their arms. 

“Boss! We got a twitcher!” Navarro calls back to him. 

Dean goes to join him. He glances down at the creature, and pokes it in the side with the toe of his boot. It shudders, writhing like a gigantic maggot. It claws at the thick wet grass with its fleshy distorted arm-stumps, twisted rictus of a mouth gaping and rotten, gooey blood seeping from the webbed-over eye sockets. 

“You wanna take this one in?” Bryce says. 

Dean shakes his head. “Nah, fucker’s nearly gone. Won’t last long enough.”

Bryce nods. “Perhaps we’ll get a live one in the traps.” 

He fights the instinctive reaction to flinch at the mention of the traps, disguising it with a sharp nod. He raises his .45 and pulls the trigger. 

The shot slams into the mutant’s head, scattering blood and brain and matter over Navarro’s boots. Navarro curses, stumbles backwards, wiping his boots off on the thick, wet grass. 

Dean shrugs. “Gotta learn to dodge, man.” 

He turns to survey the rest of the corpses. Eleven of the bastards. Eleven, on top of the ten they took down earlier, twenty one in total. Twenty one this far inside Bravo territory. 

A year ago they would’ve stacked them up and torched them. These days they can’t spare the fuel. Priorities have to be made Sanders said at the last officers’ briefing, and this is not a priority. Instead, they’ll sit out here and rot, food for scavengers and bugs. 

He sighs, tilts his head back, stares up into the grey, clouded sky. He brings his hand to the back of his neck, fingers brushing against the razored hair at his nape. Jesus, he’s tired. Tired and antsy, muscles knotted up with fatigue and tension. He wishes for a moment that they could fuck the last sweep, fuck checking out the goddamn traps. Get back to base already like that asshole Weiner wanted. Magically transport himself back to his and Sam’s quarters; Sam’s hands on him, working out the knots in his back and neck with that magic pressure. His mouth feels like he’s swallowed a handful of sand and he’s fucking parched. He reaches through the cab side window to snatch up his canteen. Jackson quirks an eyebrow at him, and he smirks at her, offers her it first.

“What’s in there?” 

“Water.” 

She makes a face. “You disappoint me, boss.” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time, soldier.” 

She snorts and he finds himself grinning. He straightens again, watches the guys head back to the Jeep as he drains the rest of his canteen. 

“Nice work!” he calls out as they swarm past him. He exchanges a couple of high-fives with Gutierrez and Navarro, happy to hear the whoops, the black-humored cracks and ragging. 

Positive reinforcement. He doesn’t give it out very often. He knows he’s a difficult commander to please, but goddamnit they’re good. They took out eleven of the motherfuckers. Dropped ‘em in under ten seconds. They’re the fucking Red Team, best damn team in the fucking compound. 

It starts to rain as they cross into Bravo Sector Three. This area used to be farmland, but it’s been five years since there’s been anyone to work it. Nature has taken over, turning everything wild so quickly and relentlessly it’s fucking scary. Sam has lots to say about this sort of shit, dissertations about Nature returning to reclaim the earth, taking back what used to be hers, getting her revenge on the human race who fucked her over so damn thoroughly. The trees and bushes and weeds have expanded here, exploding onto once neatly plowed furrows. There are still crops coming through, pushing through the weeds and greenery, potatoes and onions and radishes lying rotten and scavenged on the ground, dug up by the few foxes and badgers and coyotes left, the ones who haven’t ended up as monster chow. 

The Agricultural Committee has been talking about reclaiming this land. Apparently, it’s got the right ph consistency in the soil for what they want to grow, and God knows they need the extra space. The land inside the wall just isn’t big enough to cope with the six thousand souls who already live there, never mind the new mouths that keep being born thanks to Mrs. Fitzgerald’s big fertility drive. The time for scavenging and looting is over, their stores depleting every day. These days the only food they have is what they grow, slaughter or make themselves. 

But the fact remains that they just killed twenty one mutants right in the middle of land the committee’s so gung-ho about working. At the moment, there’s no goddamn way anyone should be farming here. It’s too fucking dangerous. 

“Boss, look. Looks like we got one.” 

Jackson’s voice drags his attention back towards the overgrown brambles ahead of them. There are three man-traps laid there, the old-fashioned metal kind. The kind he knows from personal experience that are devastatingly effective. He swallows over the tightness at the back of his throat, and forces himself to look. 

His fingers tighten around the pearl-handle of his revolver, heart sinking when his eyes focus in on the creature. It’s writhing; jerky, spasmodic, inhuman movements, neck twisted upwards towards the sky, cavernous mouth wide, dripping white rancid liquid. 

He can hear it too now, even over the Jeep’s engine: that noise, the one that lodges in his head and doesn’t leave. The noise they make when they’re trapped. That goddamn screaming. 

Jackson brings them to a halt, hand hovering over the ignition, about to cut out the engine. 

“No,” Dean says, licking his lips, swallowing over a dry mouth. “Don’t turn it off.” 

Jackson nods, clenches her fingers around the wheel. 

Dean gets out the Jeep; tension rooted into every muscle, hairs raised and pricking at his nape, a skittering up and down his spine. Christ, that noise, that fucking noise. Even now, even after five years of hearing that sound. 

It’s hellish. It’s the best description he knows. And he knows, he fucking _knows_. Taking him back, trapped demons writhing and wailing on the rack – on his rack. Standing with a straight-razor in his hand, blood rolling down his arm, trying to decide where to cut next. He’d liked that sound back then. It’d been a kind of music, a music he’d learned to love thanks to Alistair. 

He raises his hand, signaling to the rest of his team. He doesn’t want to look at them, see the freaked-out or dead-eyed expressions on their faces. They can take out the things at a distance; mow them down with godly sprays of machine gun fire. Even closer up, shotgun blast taking out chunks of brain, they can do that. But like this: when they’re cornered, that goddamn noise. 

Gutierrez and Tachman jump down first. Gutierrez’s got the tranq gun and Tachman’s tossing the chains to the grass where they land with a resonating clank. The rest of the guys spill out, fan out into a perimeter, rifles up and eyes locked on the countryside around them. It’s calling to its kind after all and who knows how long it’s been here, how quickly some more will come to its aid. They usually move in packs. This one must’ve been a stray, a straggler from the main group. The others could be close. 

Tachman shoots. The dart pierces the creature in its chest. It crumples to the ground, and Dean can practically feel every one of them taking a collective sigh of relief as finally, goddamn _finally_ , the noise stops. 

He jerks his head at Bryce and Gutierrez. “Alright, bag it.” 

“Looks like a good specimen,” Bryce comments as they toss it into the bed of the jeep. It rolls, smacks against the bench seats with a sickly, squishing sound. 

Dean grunts, repressing a shudder. He watches Tachman go back to reset the trap, the rusted metal jaws squeaking and protesting as she forces them back with the heel of her boot, bending to flick the catch. He turns away, not wanting to watch, the memories shifting insistently at the back of his mind; Sam’s pulped leg – cartilage and bone twisted – skin shredded like fried chicken – muscle and sinew ripped open. He blinks, forcing the images away, and focuses on the wild green landscape around them, the rolling hills and swaying trees, so deceptively tranquil. 

Of all the places they could’ve ended up, Western Oregon was one of the last he would ever have imagined. If he ever thought about retirement, (not that he ever did, the concept of retiring was completely foreign to him), but if he ever did let himself indulge in that sort of wishful thinking then he’d imagine somewhere in the Midwest, one of their hunting grounds. Maybe even Kansas or South Dakota near Bobby’s place, helping the old guy out with his business perhaps or fixing cars while Sam took classes or did something suitably geeky to earn a living. 

He swallows, rakes one hand over his jaw. Jesus, he’s tired. They’re so heading back after this. They’ve bagged one motherfucker, killed another twenty. He needs some freaking shut-eye. 

His radio crackles. 

_“Red Leader! Dean! Dean, come in! Are you there?”_

He frowns, slides the radio out again. “Ritchie, that you, man?” 

_“Yeah! Shit! Dean, you gotta get over here! We got – fuck – we got thirty – forty of the fuckers–“_

Dean stiffens, hairs pricking at the background noises coming through the static and crackle of the transmission. Ritchie’s panicked tone backed up by the spatter of machine gun fire, cries and shot-gun blasts. Dean swallows and shouts into the radio: “Silver Leader! Report: where are you?” 

_“Jesus, uh, Charlie Sector Two! Are you anywhere nearby? Fuck, Dean, just get here! Place is fuckin’ crawling with..."_ his voice evaporates in a hiss and crackle of static. 

“Copy that.” Dean shuts off the radio, his body suddenly infused with a dead-like calm, the kind of calm he can remember from hunting, from being so certain, so sure of his own abilities – his and Sam’s abilities. He sweeps his gaze over the rest of his team; they’re all watching him, expectant and ready, waiting for the order. 

“Let’s go! Bryce, up front with Jackson! Charlie Sector Two – and step on it!” 

Bryce nods, and runs to slide into the front seat. Dean jumps into the back along with the rest of his team. The Jeep jolts into motion, the sudden movement causing the chained specimen to slide free of its spot at the end of the Jeep bed and roll towards Dean, ugly mangled stumps of its arms webbed with flesh and bone, claws visible through the tightly wrapped chains. No hands, these things don’t have hands, just stumps with claws. It fascinates Sam, but it makes Dean nauseous, Cronenberg movie nauseous. He flinches away, yanking his feet back under the bench. Next to him, Tachman grimaces and kicks the thing with the heel of her boot, sending it rolling back into place. 

It takes them two minutes to make it to Charlie Sector Two. 

“Hold fire!” Dean tells them as they sweep into view. “’Less you got a 100% clean target, you hold fire!” 

The things are everywhere, putrid, sinewy flesh swarming the Silver Team’s military green. Silver Team outnumbered by at least three mutants to their every man. And they’re doing their best, they’re holding them off. But the sonsofbitches are so fucking fast, and there’s more of them coming, more of them – twenty – twenty-one – Christ - thirty at least – maybe more – flooding like gigantic cockroaches down the hill to the west of their position. 

“Grenades!” Dean yells. He leans over the side of the Jeep so Bryce can pick up his signals in the wing-mirror – grenades – gonna take out the newcomers with grenades. Jackson swings the jeep around, slicing them into the grass and mud, making a barrier between Silver Team and the new arrivals. 

Navarro and Koopowitz are uncapping their grenades, eyes focused on the bleeding, jerking, writhing herd heading their way. They stand up as the Jeep swerves, arms making a graceful arc as they lob the grenades into the mass of grotesque mutant flesh. 

Their aims are true. The blasts rendering him blessedly deaf until sound rears back, eardrums shaking, buzzing with it, though that could be the machine gun fire. The rifle vibrates in his grasp as he takes aim, clack-clack-clack of the machine guns tearing through the air, mowing down the bodies in videogame supremacy. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dean mutters under his breath as _still_ they keep coming, getting closer, mouths like maws, gaping hungrily, greedily for a taste of human flesh. They’re fucking close now – only five of the motherfuckers left, only five of them – but the bastards are refusing to die, machine gun fire not getting to them and he’s gonna have to mention that to Sam, tell him that they’re getting impregnable, some of them are becoming impregnable to regular machine gun bullets. He grabs a shotgun from under the seat; sees Constantinou, Tachman and Gutierrez do the same. 

Jesus, they’re fucking close, only feet from the Jeep. He shoots, absorbing the kick-back as part of his body, as Dad taught him so long ago. Blood and brain and bone, fat blast taking chunks of grotesque reptilian nose, gaping mouth and white skin-covered eyes. The motherfucker goes down. The other four go with it as the rest of his team get with the new program. Fucking shotgun blast to the brain, works like a goddamn charm 

“Head out!” he screams. “C’mon! C’mon! Move!” 

He kicks down the tailgate, jumps out, hands wrapped around his shotgun. 

The compound used to be a store for the US military back in the fifties, for Armageddon, for World War Three or the Nuclear Holocaust. The end of the world, and the US military had dug out the tunnels under the base and stocked them with enough ammunition to last fifty years. It’s good to know that they can blast and fire and burn with impunity, that they’ve got enough ammunition to just keep going. And as Sanders says, by the time they do run out, they’ll have figured out how to manufacture it themselves.

If they all last that long. 

Some of the bastards are breaking away from Silver Team, scenting the new distraction, their new walking happy meals. Dean shoots, reloads, shoots, reloads, two of them fall. And Jesus, despite Sam’s waffling about evolution and survival of the fittest, they’re still so freaking dumb, no better than animals – worse than animals – unnatural and repulsive and so freaking dumb that they haven’t learned that if you mess with Red Team then you ain’t long for this world. 

Dean catches Ritchie’s eye through the melee, through the chunks and spatters of blood and gore, through the snarling-screaming-battering at his brain, through the devastating sight of two of Ritchie’s men, no longer living breathing people but corpses, torn into, mutilated, strewn across the ground. Ritchie’s eyes are all whites, glassy-eyed and adrenalin-glazed, a crazy flush to his cheeks. He’s not even firing anymore, taking the butt of his rifle to the nearest mutant, smacking into spongy soft flesh like red bloody putty, though the sonofabitch’s not put off, coming back at him with claws outstretched, jaws gaping... 

Dean signals desperately: _get down get down get down Goddamnit!_ Somewhere through the bloody, gory haze Ritchie sees him, the signal registering. He drops and Dean shoots. The mutant falls, collapses like a redwood on top of Ritchie, and Dean has a second to register the disgust in Ritchie’s expression as he squirms out from under the mangled body. 

“You’re welcome,” he mutters to himself, but there’s no time for sarcasm. They’ve got the upper hand now. They’re winning, but there are still a dozen of the fuckers to kill. 

A couple of minutes more and they’re all dead. It’s over. The battle short and furious and none of his team are down. 

More importantly, none of his guys has been bit. 

He goes round them, slapping each one on the back, squeezing shoulders, receiving glad to be here euphoric, relieved smiles or stony-faced resignation. He could write a book about the different ways of dealing with trauma. There are those who crumble and give up, there are those who push all the emotion from themselves, teach themselves how not to care, then there are those like the majority of his team, like Jackson for example; she’s leaning up against the side of the Jeep, hip cocked at a jaunty angle, assault rifle dangling from her right hand. She lifts the barrel and blows across it, cowboy style, smirking at him as he strides towards her. 

“Just, do your job, Jackson,” he says 

“Yes, Sir, of course, Sir, anything you say, Sir!” she counters in a high, breathless tone. 

He rolls his eyes at her, and goes to find Ritchie. 

“How many down?” he asks him.

Ritchie flinches, raises his hand to his face, smoothes away the blood caked around his temple, his own probably, though maybe not. 

“We lost Rivers and Montez,” he says. 

Dean nods. He watches two of Ritchie’s team load their two dead companions, Rivers and Montez, onto the back of the Silver Team’s vehicle. 

Ritchie says, “Morrison got bit.” 

“Shit!” Dean curses. 

Ritchie gives him a bleak smile. “Yeah.” 

“Does he know?” 

“Course he fuckin’ knows.” Ritchie sighs again, raises his eyes to Dean’s. “Dean, man, I – I ain’t sure I can. I mean, could you maybe?" 

“Rich, dude, no way. You gotta do it. You’re his commander.” 

“I know, I just. Fuck, Dean, he’s been with us almost two years. Two fucking years! He’s had my back. I can’t tell you how many fuckin’ times he’s saved my sorry ass.” 

“Then you gotta have his back now. You gotta do it,” Dean insists. “I know it – it beyond sucks, I know that, I do. I done it enough myself. Clancy…” he trails off, that lump in his throat again at the memory of Clancy, guiding that kid behind that tree, only twenty three years old, forcing him to the ground, the kid’s head bowed, tears rolling down his cheeks as he begged and pleaded with Dean. And then the acceptance, the Lord’s Prayer tumbling from the boy’s lips as Dean put the barrel of his gun to his skull, as if God could even do anything for him. As if God could give a rat’s ass about any of them. 

God and the angels abandoned them five years ago. They haven’t been back since. 

This is just something they have to do. Another burden. And it’s not gonna change. There’s one thing Dean’s realized over the past five years and that’s that these things just keep coming. They don’t quit. Ever. He and the rest of the team leaders have responsibilities, and one of them is making sure that the men and women under their command go out like they came in: as humans. 

“Rich, it’s gotta be you,” he says. 

Ritchie nods, the look in his eyes going dead and opaque. “Yeah, I know. Christ, I just wish.” He trails off. Jesus, wishing. Wishing’s worse than praying. Ritchie should know that. 

Dean watches him pick his way through the mutilated corpses and gore, watches him lean down to where Morrison is crouching. Ritchie says something and Morrison jerks his head up, gets to his feet and follows after Ritchie, towards the nearest copse of trees, the walk of a condemned man. 

Dean turns away. He feels sick, heavy and deadened with the weight of what’s about to happen. He glances at his own team; Bryce, Navarro and Gutierrez standing off to one side, shooting the shit, their eyes caught and wary, tense with cruel expectation. Tachman, Ancelotti and Constantinou have joined Jackson by the Jeep, their attention riveted to the surrounding fields, keeping look-out, shoulders raised into tight lines, fingers on their triggers. The rest of his squad, Street, Djourou, Park and Lancaster are picking through the mutilated bodies, checking for twitchers, but the slumped lines of their shoulders and the hooded look in their eyes show that they know exactly what’s about to go down. 

Ritchie’s team has come together, moved into a huddle that reminds him with a wrench of watching old football games. Their hands braced on each other’s shoulders, heads bowed as if one of them’s about to call a play. They’re supporting each other, readying themselves for the sound of their commander putting a bullet in the back of their comrade’s skull. 

Dean curls his hands into fists, bows his head and pictures his brother’s face. 

The shot rings out unnaturally loud. He half expects to see a flock of birds take off from the trees at the disturbance. But there are no birds here, just the empty reverberation of the shot hanging in the air. Ritchie’s men, still in their huddle, flinch as one, almost collapsing in on themselves. Dean swallows and looks away, gaze catching on the stooped figure of Ritchie, emerging from the copse of trees with Morrison’s body draped over his shoulders in a fireman’s hold. 

 

**

 

There are two things he misses from Before. Well, there are a lot of things he misses from Before, (like the internet for example, _man_ , he misses the internet), but there are two things that stand out most. 

The first is his car, his beloved baby. He tries not to think about her most of the time. It’s strange how he’s come to accept the near eradication and slaughter of the human race over the past five years, (well not accept exactly, but these things are relative), that thinking about it now just leaves him cold, incapable of quantifying how much they have lost. But when he thinks about his baby, about that moment when they were forced to leave her by the side of the road on a lonely Idaho highway, a lump still springs to his throat. 

Hell, he’s always known his priorities were fucked up. 

Sometimes he dreams about driving her and he wakes up with the smell of her in his nostrils: leather and dirt and beer and vinyl upholstery and fast-food wrappers and his and Sam’s sweat and spunk, those combined smells that made up his life for so many years. His heart hammers and the lump in his throat aches and those days are always bad days. 

The second thing he misses is long hot showers. Showers at the base are never hot, lukewarm at best, and they last three minutes and only three minutes. Apparently it’s necessary for water and electricity preservation. They run their own generators from the solar panels erected years earlier at the southern side of the base, but the technology is old and requires a lot of maintenance. Despite Dean’s arguments that morale would be a helluva lot higher if they were allowed long, hot showers at least once a week, Sanders and the rest of the Executive Committee insist there are other things that take precedence. 

Whatever the reasoning, it sucks big time. Three minutes is barely enough time to wash the blood and gore and sweat from his body. Forget about jerking off. These days his fantasies are filled with hot showers – sometimes just that – just a long hot shower, though sometimes they’re memories: those times when they used to check into a motel with great water pressure and a tub big enough for the two of them to crowd into together. And then he’s lost in the memory of going down on Sam under the falling spray, how Sam looked with water running down his chest, flattening his hair to his scalp, droplets fringing his eyelashes, Dean’s hands hooked around his brother’s strong, muscled thighs and his face buried in his wet, springy pubes. 

It’s memories like those that make him regret the years he and Sam spent not fucking around, the years when things were bad between them, when hell and angels and demons came between them. That one, maybe two years when he rarely touched Sam, and when they did give into their urges, into that burning need and desire for each other, it was fast and hard and furious, tinged with self-loathing and painful nostalgia of how it used to be, how it _should_ be between them. 

It’s not like that anymore, thank God. It hasn’t been like that for years. But Dean still has regrets, and missing out on all that steamy, hot shower sex with Sam is one of the biggest. 

He catches his reflection in the mirror as he steps out the shower stall. He hesitates, caught out by a sudden lack of recognition as he stares in confusion at the weathered looking dude with streaks of grey around his temples peering back at him, until his brain fires up again and he’s registering his own reflection: that is him, that’s how he looks these days. He arcs up one eyebrow, frowning at himself and assessing. God, Sam’s right, he is looking kinda haggard. He needs a fucking break; he needs to sleep for a week. Not that that’s ever gonna happen. 

He strokes one hand down his chest, lingering over the distinct muscles of his stomach. Hell, at least he still looks good here, and well, whatever, he’s gonna be forty next year, he’s not going to look like he did ten years ago. He’s still a handsome guy though, if he says so himself. He’s older – yeah – there’s mileage in the crow’s feet around his eyes and the grey in his hair, but he can carry it off, he can work it. He’s still the same guy he always was, still got the charm and the confidence and the bullshit lines (as Sam would say). And physically he’s in better shape than he has been for years. Regular PT, the toughest training in the corps, and a rationed diet lacking in the roadside food he used to love so much mean that he’s much leaner and stronger than he used to be. Hell, he’d been getting kinda pudgy five or six years ago, love handles at his waist and hips, the beginnings of a beer gut. Not anymore though, he’s a lean, mean, fighting machine these days, back down to the same weight as when Sammy was in high school, though more muscled, more resilient, tougher all over. 

He smirks at the thought and gives his flat muscled belly a couple of satisfied pats, cocking an eyebrow at his reflection. He reaches for the clean fatigues he’d slung over the towel rail and tugs them on. These days instead of jeans, shirts and Dad’s leather jacket, he wears combat fatigues and military issue boots, even when off duty. Instead of the amulet around his neck, he has dog tags. It’s one of the many ways their lives have changed, but this is not something he regrets. Wearing a uniform is clean and simple in a way that hunting never really was. Having a superior he respects to take orders from is a relief after so many years of second guessing his own decisions, being pushed around and played by demons and angels. He was raised into this world, he was raised to be a warrior, it’s comforting to be back in it again. 

He glances at his watch as he leaves the bathroom. It’s almost 9pm; he’s been up for 18 hours. Even so, the exhaustion from earlier is seeping away and he feels too wired to go to bed. And anyway, Sam’s not back yet, freaking workaholic. He winkles his nose in annoyance, grabs his jacket from the hook on the door and leaves their quarters. He’s going to get a drink. 

He takes the long route to Rick’s. Outside, the air is cool and damp, the after-effects of the rain lingering. He turns up the collar on his jacket and takes the path leading away from the military barracks and towards the civilian buildings. 

He passes by the field that the Construction and Livestock Committees have been fighting over for the past few months. By the looks of the foundation work and the presence of the base’s one rusty digger, the Construction Committee must have won that battle, though they don’t seem to have made much progress. Probably in need of supplies, and God, he hopes that Sanders isn’t gonna ask him to lead a salvage and scavenge mission in their meeting tomorrow. He fucking hates those S&S missions, hates driving the collection trucks and military Jeeps through miles and miles of deserted, wild landscapes, broken roads and destroyed tarmac beneath them, half-burnt-out buildings and random piles of animal or mutant remains. He hates leaving the compound for so long – leaving Sam – hates how damn scary and inhuman the cities have become with their roaming packs of ravenous mutants, burned and looted stores, deserted and forgotten houses, all those reminders of the civilization that was still there only five years ago. 

In the early days, before the whole world got infected, some cities were burned down by the authorities in an effort at containment. This was back when they still had some semblance of a government, still someone in charge, calling the shots. He can remember hearing the announcements on the radio, on the one government run station that’d still worked, the announcer’s voice intoning the cleansing of Las Vegas. The desert city torched to the ground, genocide of mutants and any unlucky humans left behind. 

Sam’s mouth had worked soundlessly, eyes shiny and glassy with unshed tears as they’d stared at each other. 

“Christ, _Vegas_ , Sammy, they killed Vegas,” he’d said. 

“Those bastards,” Sam had murmured, and Dean had laughed, hysterical and terrified, and pulled Sam across the bench seat towards him, needing to hold onto the one thing he still had. 

Sometimes he wonders if things would’ve been different if Sam hadn’t gotten injured. It was Sam’s injury that brought them to the compound, Sam’s injury that forced them to stay and build a life here instead of going back out on the road again. If Sam hadn’t gotten caught in that trap maybe they would still be out there, leading their nomadic Winchester lifestyle, saving people and hunting mutants. 

Most likely, they’d both be dead, or mutants themselves. Hell, he’s not even sure how many other humans are still out there. Not even Sanders knows for sure. Sometimes it feels like this is it; the compound really is all that’s left. Humanity’s last stand.


	3. Chapter 3

Thursday night at Rick’s is karaoke night. It’s depressingly typical that the world can more or less end ( _not end, Dean, the world hasn’t ended, it’s still here_ , Sam’s voice in his head, correcting him with that fond, pedantic tone) and yet, karaoke survives. It’s some fucking legacy. 

He sits at the bar, nursing his drink, and listens to Rogers and Weatherly of Blue Team murdering Cutting Crew’s _Died In Your Arms Tonight._

And that’s the other thing about the karaoke (at least this particular karaoke machine) its playlist consists of almost exclusively soft rock ballads of the 1970s and 1980s. Sure, Dean has been known to get up there and smash _Every Rose has its Thorn_ or _Dream On_ when he’s inebriated enough, but they’re classics, totally understandable. 

He looks over at the stage as Rogers and Weatherly finish, bowing ironically at the jeers and catcalls from the rest of Blue Team. The bar’s busy, mainly a military crowd tonight, though there are plenty of civvies around, some mingling and some sticking to their own. His team called him over when he arrived, boisterous and loud and well on their way to some manic hangovers. He turned them down in the end, telling them he’s got an 0700 hours meeting with Sanders tomorrow (which is true), though the real and kinda pathetic truth is that he’s been looking forward to spending the evening with Sam. Just Sam. The two of them alone together in their quarters. When his brother finally gets his workaholic, overachieving ass down here of course. 

“Hey, boss.” 

He looks up as Navarro claps a hand on his shoulder, patting him in an overfriendly, drunken way. 

“You gotta come drink with us,” Navarro slurs. He jerks his head towards the corner booth where Gutierrez and Street are wrestling on one of the bench seats, Gutierrez trying to pull Street down into his lap, Ancelotti leaning over and grabbing for Street’s crotch. 

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Little too homoerotic for me, man.” 

Navarro blinks in the direction of the table then lets out a wild bark of a laugh. “Oh man, they’re so fuckin’ gay!” He turns back to Dean, grinning sloppily. “You remember my sister, boss? My sister, Jenny?” 

Dean hesitates, taken aback for a second by the sudden change of subject. He peers into Navarro’s face; the kid’s eyes are wide, terribly and drunkenly sincere. 

“She likes you, like, a lot,” Navarro continues, leaning in even closer so his breath tickles against Dean’s cheek, hot and sour and alcoholic. “She’s got this enormous crush on you.”

Dean licks his lips and fights the urge to laugh. Seriously? Have they regressed to the eighth grade here? Is one of his own men trying to fix him up with his freaking sister? 

“I told her, I said, ain’t nobody better than the Commander, Jen. You can’t go wrong with him. Look, sir, she’s sittin’ over there, with the guys.” He jerks his head back towards their booth. There are only two girls at the table who aren’t part of Red Team, both look young, early twenties probably. “She’s the one with dark hair,” Navarro slurs, “look, she’s lookin’ over at us.” 

Sure enough, the dark-haired girl has lifted her head and is looking their way. She cringes away immediately when she notices them looking, a blush flooding into her cheeks. It’s kinda cute. Hey, she _is_ cute, hot from what he can see of her with her long dark hair, smooth skin and by the looks of that tight little t-shirt, an excellent rack too. Most definitely his type. Still, though. 

“So you gonna join us? Gonna speak to her? She’d be so happy, man.” 

“Dude, I’m flattered, but she’s a little young for me, don’t you think?” he says. 

Navarro blinks like he’s trying to process Dean’s words. “You ain’t that old,” he says at last. 

Dean grins and shakes his head. “That’s mighty complimentary of you, Tommy, but I’m thirty-nine. How old is your sister?” 

“Twenty-two,” Navarro answers, still with the befuddled look. 

Dean disguises the wince. Jesus, twenty-two. What was he doing when he was twenty two? Having a lot more fun than she is no doubt. It’s pretty sucky for young women here: forced to keep popping out the babies if they’re not in the military or one of the reserved occupations. All part of Mrs. Fitzgerald’s big fertility drive. Then again, anybody who is here is by definition one of the lucky few, so they all gotta take their punches. 

“People don’t care about that shit now, not like we can be picky, boss,” slurs Navarro. 

There’s some truth in that. There are a little over six thousand people living on the base, pickings are slim, and fit and available men are getting less and less plentiful by the day. Can’t blame the girl for being interested, by anyone’s standards he’s a prime catch. 

“Dean?” 

Sam’s voice jerks his attention away from Navarro, and he turns to see his brother giving him a quizzical look, raising an eyebrow as he props his cane up against the bar and slides onto the empty stool on Dean’s other side. 

“Sam!” Navarro cries. He reaches across Dean’s body to pump Sam’s hand. “Nice to see you, man! Maybe you can talk some sense into the Commander?” 

Sam looks amused, exchanging a glance with Dean and smiling tolerantly at Navarro. “I can try. What is it?” 

“So, my little sister’s got, like, this enormous crush on him and she’s desperate for him to just come on over there and, like, talk? But he reckons he’s too freakin’ old or something! Which is bullshit ‘cause he’s in great shape. Right, boss? Right?” He claps Dean heavily on the shoulder again. “She’s a great girl, seriously, I ain’t just sayin’ this ‘cause she’s my sister, but she’s an awesome girl.” 

Dean watches his brother’s smile get tighter and tighter, his eyes narrowing and that crease appearing between his eyebrows. Navarro’s still utterly oblivious, rattling on in his ear. 

“Navarro, hey, _hey_ , dude, shut up for a second!” 

Navarro instantly shuts up, obeying on instinct. Goddamn, his men are well trained. 

“With respect, I’m not interested in your sister. I’m sure she’s a lovely girl. Fact is, I can see that she’s a lovely girl, but she’s too young for me. And I’m not," he shrugs, aware of Sam beside him, “I’m not looking for any sort of a relationship. I have other priorities. You got that?” He raises his voice at the end, using his officer tone. Not that dissimilar from his big brother tone, though a helluva lot more successful. 

Navarro blinks at him, eyes a little foggy, then he nods rapidly. “Yes, Sir, course, Sir.” 

“You owe me some seriously good sex for that,” he says five minutes later as they make their way back to their quarters. “Did you see how hot Navarro’s little sister was?” 

“No,” Sam snaps. 

Dean flicks him a side-ways look. “You alright, man?” 

“Yeah, Dean, I’m fine. Just peachy.” 

“Dude, seriously, enough with the lemon face. You know I only got eyes for one girl round here.” 

He smirks at his brother but Sam’s not responding to it, his expression tense and not amused, a small muscle twitching at the edge of his jaw, his fingers wrapped tightly around the head of his cane. 

Dean considers stopping and saying something else, something about how dumb it is of Sam to even be jealous, how fucking ridiculous he’s acting, but they’re not home yet. There are still too many people around; overtaking them as they make their slow, steady way back to their quarters, forced to walk at Sam’s pace. 

Their quarters are some of the nicest on the military side of the barracks. They were given the room three years ago after Sam got discharged from the infirmary and they’ve never considered changing. It’s the longest time the two of them have ever lived in one place and the room has become home, or at least they’ve tried to make it home. They’ve tacked pictures from old magazines to the walls: a couple of Dean’s favorite Maxim spreads, beer and underwear ads and just crap that looks damn cool. Sam even managed to find an old ad for a 1960s Chevy Impala from amongst the base’s ancient stack of 1950s and 1960s magazines, it’s the wrong year but it’s almost perfect, it’s almost his baby. They’ve salvaged furniture from other parts of the base and have even built or made some things themselves during their rare down time in the craft and wood shops over in the civilian barracks. A few years back Sam had gone through a whittling phase, a way of keeping himself occupied during his long, painful recovery, and the room’s littered with his wooden, lumpy and somewhat disfigured approximations of various animals. Overall, it’s actually the nicest place they’ve ever lived together – which says a lot about how they used to live. 

Dean unlocks the door as Sam walks stiffly towards the bed and lowers himself to the edge with an audible wince. 

“Sore?” Dean says, turning to look at his brother. 

Sam gives that exasperating, one-shouldered shrug, avoiding Dean’s gaze, but Dean can tell that he’s in pain. It’s obvious in the lines around his eyes and mouth, the tense shape of his shoulders, not to mention the evil mood. 

He sighs and kneels on the floor in front of his brother. “Damn it, Sam, how many freakin’ times I gotta tell you?” He tugs at Sam’s light blue scrub pants. “C’mon, get ‘em off.” 

Sam’s mouth twitches, the corners curling upwards into an almost mischievous shape as he looks down at Dean. But Dean’s not in the mood for it right now. He just raises his eyebrows, his pissed older brother _don’t keep me fucking waiting_ face. 

Sam sighs and fiddles with the drawstring of his scrub pants, shifting his ass on the bed to push them down. These days, scrubs or track pants are Sam’s uniform. Not just ‘cause he practically lives in the goddamn lab but because they’re the easiest choice for his leg. Jeans and fatigues are too difficult, too stiff and too narrow, and anyway, there aren’t that many pairs on the base left in Sam’s gigantor size. 

Dean helps Sam tug off the pants until they’re pooling on the floor around his feet, then he goes to work on the buckles and straps around Sam’s right thigh and hips. It doesn’t look too bad, just a little red where the straps have chafed against his sweaty skin, where he’s been wearing the prosthesis for far too long. Dean purses his lips, keeps his head bent as he gently detaches the socket from around the stump of Sam’s thigh, removing the false leg entirely. 

The skin around the stump is red, enflamed and definitely sore. The rash that’s been troubling Sam for the past few weeks has not improved, in fact, it looks worse. Dean scowls and lifts his head to glare up at Sam, though the glare dims a little when he sees that his brother’s got his lip caught between his teeth, wincing like he’s in genuine pain. But Christ, it’s his own goddamn fault. He knows that he’s not supposed to wear the prosthesis for long periods of time. It’s not built for that.

“Idiot,” he mutters under his breath as he gets to his feet, propping the false leg up against Sam’s side of the bed in its usual spot. 

Sam scoots backwards on the bed until he’s leaning against the headboard. He tilts his head back against the wall, and closes his eyes. Dean watches him; he looks tired and vulnerable, in just his boxers and the light blue scrubs shirt, one leg stretched out in front of him. 

Dean swallows, his chest clenching as he says, “You know you’re an idiot, right?” 

Sam opens his eyes and blinks at him. “I’m not going to stop wearing it, Dean.” 

“I know.” 

“You don’t understand.” 

“No, I don’t. ’Cause when did we ever give a crap what other people think?” 

“I care what other people think,” says Sam. 

Dean presses his lips together and goes to the bathroom. He takes the tub of medicated lotion down from the mirrored cabinet and comes back into the room. He perches on the edge of the bed and angles his body towards his brother. Sam’s staring down at his lap, his hand hovering over the scraped raw skin at the edges of his stump. He raises his head as Dean shifts closer, looks at him blankly for a moment, then removes his hand, letting it fall to the bed. 

Dean gives him a reassuring smile and unscrews the tub. He smoothes the lotion over the angry red rash as gently as he can, his mind taking him back thirty-four years, to his five year old self watching Dad smear diaper-rash cream onto baby Sammy’s little butt. The stuff had smelt exactly the freaking same as this shit now, hell; this probably is the same stuff, just in different packaging. He finishes up, screws the lid back on and gets up to replace the tub in the bathroom cabinet. When he gets back to the bed, Sam’s wrestling with his shirt, tugging it over his head, sending his hair every which way. 

He throws the shirt to the floor when he’s done and maneuvers himself under the covers, wearing just his boxers. Dean shucks off his own clothes – all of them, except his dog tags – and piles them up on the chair by the bed for easy access in the morning. He’s got another early start and he’s not leaving his bed until the last possible second. 

Once he’s naked he gets the lights, and slides under the covers. He rolls onto his side and shifts closer to Sam until he’s pressed up against his back. Sam tenses for a millisecond then relaxes, nestling back into Dean’s body. Dean leans in, puts his lips to the firm muscled curve of Sam’s shoulder and kisses him softly. 

“Hey, you okay? Does it still sting?” 

“It’s okay,” Sam whispers. 

He’s probably lying, it probably hurts like a bitch, but this is Sam, this is the guy who used to sew himself up with just a little whiskey to deaden the pain. Sam has the highest pain threshold of anyone he knows, except perhaps himself. 

He slides one arm around Sam’s body, fingers smooth over his stomach. Sam shivers, and Dean skims his fingers lower, brushing up against the waistband of his boxers. He props himself up on one elbow for a better angle, peppering kisses along the breadth of Sam’s shoulders, the nape of his neck and nub of his spine. Sam moans, soft and low, and Dean pauses to watch his profile with a greedy hunger. Sam’s eyelashes flutter, his mouth twitches and curls up into a loose sloppy smile, his lips soundlessly shaping Dean’s name. Dean presses another kiss to one of his shoulder blades then he pushes his hand under the waistband of his shorts and grabs his cock. 

Sam’s already half-hard, flesh warm and silken under Dean’s fingers. Dean squeezes gently, moves to bury his face in the hollow of his brother’s throat and inhale his scent. He jacks Sam’s cock until it’s fully hard, waistband caught around his wrist, fingers tickling Sam’s balls on the way down and brushing over the sensitive head on the way back up. Sam hums, mouths Dean’s name, fumbles back with his hand to paw at Dean’s naked hip to tug him in closer, their bodylines melting into one. 

Sam likes to drag it out these days, he likes to savor it, and of course he likes to make Dean work for it. Luckily for Sam, Dean is an awesome big brother and an awesome sex partner, and after twenty years of fooling around together, he knows the exact size and shape of every one of his brother’s buttons. Like for example how Sam gets all tingly inside when Dean leans over him from behind to kiss the corner of his mouth and drag his tongue over the edge of his lips. He feels Sam shiver and turn his head into Dean, their noses colliding as their mouths clash. 

They kiss, open-mouthed, breathing each other’s oxygen, Sam’s smile against his lips. This is something that hasn’t changed between them, the way Sam’s mouth on his can send him reeling. He gets his hand on the mattress, palm pushing down into the hard springs, other hand still working Sam’s dick. He rolls his brother onto his back, hair an inky spill against the pillow, mouth loose and curled up, eyes hooded, dark slits in his familiar face, locked on Dean. 

He flashes Sam a snap of a grin, all teeth and devil-may-care. He wriggles his shoulders to throw off the covers, cool air hitting his slick, sweaty back. He straddles his brother’s waist, and Sam gasps at the contact, reaching up to cup the back of Dean’s neck and pull him down into a kiss. They kiss and kiss, until Dean’s lips are tingling and his face rubbed raw. He works his hand between their bodies to find and fist Sam’s cock once more, the pulls getting rough and spasmodic as they grind together. 

“C’mon, man, c’mon, Sammy. Wanna see you, wanna see you lose it. So hot, Sam, so damn hot,” he whispers into the side of his brother’s face. 

Sam clutches the back of Dean’s head, arches up into his hand. He’s getting close now, muscles trembling and hips stuttering, breathing gone high and tight. Dean flicks his thumb over the head of his brother’s dick, hears Sam’s gasped breath, and then he’s coming, spurting over Dean’s fingers. “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” Sam begs, back and shoulders rising up from the mattress. Dean doesn’t, wringing every last drop from his brother’s twitching dick. 

Sam pants and collapses back into the pillows, expression gone slack and sloppy. He runs his hand down Dean’s arm, then back up again to his shoulder, his neck, fingers smoothing over the chain holding his dog tags, making them jingle in the quiet room. He pats the side of Dean’s face, cups his jaw, thumb caressing his bottom lip. 

“That was great, thanks, Dean.” 

Dean laughs, kisses the pad of his brother’s thumb. He flops down into the bed, and turns his head to watch Sam. 

“You wanna help me out here?” He waves a hand over his own erection. 

Sam gives him a brilliant grin and reaches over to jack his cock. 

It reminds Dean of when they were kids, lying side by side in the dark in their shared queen bed. Helping each other out, they used to call it. When they’d reach for each other’s cocks, eyes locked on the dark ceiling above, hands moving under the covers, furtive and quiet and secret; when their arms and elbows would bump together and Sam would giggle and gasp and Dean would hiss at him to be quiet, to not wake Dad; when he’d roll over into his brother’s hot gangly space and claim him; when he’d feel Sam’s long slender body tremble underneath his hands, his young soft skin burning up under his fingertips; when Sam would whimper out his name like he couldn’t help it, and clutch onto him with both hands, holding on tight to his big brother as he let himself go. 

Sam rolls onto his side to get better access, propping himself up on one elbow, hand under his chin, small private smile on his face as he watches Dean. He works his long clever fingers up and down Dean’s dick, caressing his balls and dragging his fingers down against his crack. It doesn’t take long. Unlike Sam, Dean never holds back, he doesn’t see the point of it. Sam’s hands and body have the same effect on him now that they did ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Sure, his recovery time isn’t what it once was, but some things never change, and his brother still has the magic touch as far as Dean’s dick is concerned. 

“Thank you for the present,” Sam says a few minutes later after Dean has gotten back into the bed, clean and shivering from his cold three minute shower. 

He turns his head to give his brother a questioning look and Sam clarifies: “The hostile? The one your guys brought down to the lab? They said you picked it up in one of the traps.” 

“Oh, that. Well, you’re welcome. I guess.” 

Jesus, Sam is one weird dude. Though, he doesn’t know why he’s surprised, he can remember how Sam used to get back when they were hunting. Whenever he got a chance to get his hands on a cadaver or a monster-carcass or whatever, then it was latex gloves and scalpels and a happy Sammy. This is just the same thing; only swap the monster cadavers for hostile mutants. 

“It was still alive?” he says. “When you got it?” 

“Yeah, it’s still alive. Looks like a good specimen, younger than the others we got at the moment. I was checking it out before, that’s why I was late. Robinson needed my help getting it processed.” 

“ _What?_ Sam, Jesus, man! I thought I told you not to get involved in that crap? Don’t you know how freakin’ dangerous that is?” 

He sits up in bed with a jerk, turning his head to stare down at his brother. _Robinson?_ Sam was fucking around with Robinson? Guy’s a fucking prick. Seriously bad news. Not that Dean can entirely blame him, working the cages every single day gotta be the single worst job on the base, and that includes the poor assholes down in sanitation. But Sam should not be going down into the cages. Sam should be keeping the fuck away from the cages. He should only be allowed near those motherfucking mutants when they’ve been shot through with enough elephant tranquilizer to take down a herd of elephants. 

“I know exactly how dangerous it is,” Sam replies tightly. “I know better than you, Dean. It’s my job to know.” 

And that’s something else Dean doesn’t like to think about - just how up close and freaking personal Sam gets with those things every damn day. The thing is, he knows that they’re proving more and more resilient to the tranqs, that they’re developing immunity. He’s seen it for himself. Two months ago, they’d made that mistake – _he’d_ made that mistake – not using enough tranq, and someone had died because of it. They’d taken one of the bastards alive just like they’d done earlier today, doped and chained it up, everything like normal. Except, that it hadn’t mattered. The thing had come awake in the bed of the Jeep and sunk its teeth into the nearest human body: Craig Clancy, one of Dean’s guys, a member of his team, a 23 year old kid with a wife and baby back at the base and everything to live for. 

He’d seen it play out right in front of him, utterly useless and unable to do anything to save the kid. He’d emptied the chamber of his .45 into the mutant’s head; but by then it was too late. He’d made Jackson pull the Jeep over and he and Clancy had gotten out, walked side by side to the nearest copse of trees where he’d put a bullet in the kid’s brain. 

“It’s not your job to go down into the cages,” he insists. “Jesus Christ, Sam, that thing could’ve woken up at any moment. I don’t want you down there! Let Robinson and his guys handle it, they’re psycho enough.” He presses his lips together, trying to swallow down that familiar frustration. “I just wish that for once – for once in your goddamned life you would listen to me and just – just do what I say.” 

“You’re not in charge anymore, Dean,” Sam snaps, sitting up and glaring at him. “I’m not one of your men and you’re not my commander!” 

Dean grits his teeth and throws himself back down into the bed, mattress shaking under the impact. “I’m still your big brother! And I’m still – Jesus, man, you’re all I got. I can’t let you put yourself at risk like that, especially now –“ 

“Now that I’m a gimp you mean?” Sam interrupts. “Now that I can’t handle myself anymore? Now that I’m a useless cripple with one fucking leg?” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

“Yeah but that’s what you meant! Dean, I watch you go out there," he thrusts out his hand, jabbing one finger towards the window, “outside – with those things. I watch you do that all the damn time and I don’t say anything ‘cause I know that’s your job and that’s what you do and that’s who you are and you’re not gonna change! But I don’t have to like it, and I worry every single fucking time you cross the wall, so don’t talk to me about keeping safe.” 

Sam’s eyes are flashing, his mouth set: it’s so familiar this expression on Sam’s face, this righteous fury, this frustration and anger and exasperation. Dean’s gaze drops to his brother’s heaving chest, to his hand fisted in the sheet, the other still outstretched. Sam jerks his head away, swallows hard, letting his hand fall to the bed. 

“Sammy, hey, c’mon, look, I’m sorry, man. I just. I worry, you know.” 

Sam shakes his head, blows out a breath. “Look, let’s just – get some sleep.” He shifts back down into the bed, pulling the sheets with him. 

Dean watches him for a moment, biting his lip, then says finally, “Yeah, okay.” 

 

**

 

He blows his way past Weiner at 0700 hours. Weiner looks up from his paperwork and scowls at him. “You’re late, Red Leader.” 

Dean grits his teeth, skin prickling in irritation. He and Weiner are engaged in this ongoing mutual loathing thing. He can’t even remember anymore how it started, just that Weiner totally hates his guts and Dean – well – he just can’t stand the officious, little prick. 

A personality clash Sam calls it, rolling his eyes when Dean bitches about one of Weiner’s pathetic attempts to undermine him – missing him off meeting lists or not sending him memos – all that petty, insignificant shit that grates on Dean, leaves him itching to slam his fist into the smug bastard’s annoyingly symmetrical face. 

This time he takes Sam’s advice and ignores him. The asshole is wrong anyway. It’s 0700 hours, he’s not late, he’s precisely on time. 

Sanders waves him in. He’s got his back to Dean, standing over the hotplate in the corner of his office, pouring coffee from the saucepan that simmers throughout the day, infusing Sanders’ office and most of CIC with the bitter scent of burnt coffee. Still, it tastes better than it smells and it’s helluva lot better than the shit the mess hall serves up. 

Sanders doesn’t bother asking him if he wants a cup, just pours him one and places it on the desk, indicating with his head for Dean to take a seat. 

“Thanks,” Dean grunts, taking a sip and repressing the accompanying shudder; but Christ, that’s some bitter coffee. 

Sanders takes a seat opposite him, raising his mug to his lips and eying him over the rim. 

“Silver Leader informed me that your two teams slaughtered fifty one hostiles in yesterday’s battle.” 

So they’re calling it a battle then. Seems fair enough. Though, fifty-one, Jesus, fifty one mutants, and that figure doesn’t include the bastards they took out before Ritchie sent out his SOS. 

“We got twenty-two before that,” Dean tells him. “Twenty one dead, one captured. It’s in the cages now, Robinson processed it yesterday.” 

_Robinson and Sam_ , he thinks, gritting his teeth at the thought while forcing down another bitter chug of coffee. 

Sanders nods, and tilts his chair back, steepling his fingers under his chin. “And Silver team eradicated thirteen earlier in the day. That makes a total of eighty six hostiles. In one day. They’re increasing.” 

“Sam says they’re just going to keep coming. They can sense us from miles away, this many humans in one place…” he trails off, shrugs. “So, yeah.” 

_We’re screwed_ , he thinks, completing the sentence. He’s been thinking it for years, ever since the first reports started filtering through from other hunters, tales of zombies that don’t follow any of the rules; a new menace, spreading and infecting and taking down entire towns. Something man-made, some scientist’s folly, and it was destroying the world far better than Lucifer could’ve dreamed of. 

And so now, five years later, he and Sam trapped on a base in the middle of Western Oregon along with six thousand other lucky souls, trying to build a new world from behind the wall. It’s not going to work. He knows it, and surely Sanders must know it too, yet they keep trying. He’s just relieved that for once, the responsibility isn’t entirely his and Sam’s. 

“The question is, of course, what we do to mitigate it,” says Sanders, straightening his chair. 

Dean doesn’t respond, just takes another swig of coffee. What they’re doing right now: sending good people out there to patrol and fight, to hold back the mutant menace, it’s just getting them killed, and it’s not like they have the manpower to spare. But what else can they do? Until Sam and his band of geeks discover the vaccine or the fatal flaw or at least some fucking way of getting the bastards, they’re pretty much fucked. But this isn’t the time for doom and gloom, Sanders is looking to him for answers, and Dean’s a Winchester, if there’s one thing he knows really damn well it’s how to keep fighting when the odds are against you. 

“We can train harder and longer,” he says. “My team puts in the most training hours and we have the best survival rate. You can’t tell me the two ain’t related.” 

The corner of Sanders’ mouth twitches and he nods. “I’m not disagreeing with you, Commander. And yes, you’re right, the figures speak for themselves. Your team has the best mortality and the best strike rate in the corps – which is why I’m putting you in charge of all basic training for new recruits from now on.” 

“What? But what about Ruiz and Gilet?” 

“They’ll report to you.” 

“And Red Team?" 

“Are you telling me you can’t handle this additional responsibility, Dean?” 

Shit, first-name terms, never good. Sanders is regarding him with that piercing, assessing gaze that brings back his father so irrevocably. It’s not the first time that he’s noticed the resemblance. In many ways, Sanders often seems to him like an older African American version of his father. He’s pure Marine through and through, a professional, a veteran of some of the world’s most horrific conflicts. He’s got that same utilitarian ruthlessness and presence as Dad always had, that same strength of will – the one that’s keeping six thousand people alive, that’s _kept_ six thousand people alive for so long. 

_Are you telling me you can’t you handle this responsibility, Dean?_ The words echo in his head in his father’s familiar deep voice; his father’s features imposed over the grizzled face of his commanding officer for the fraction of a second. He blinks, pushing the memory away and sits up straight in his chair. 

“I can handle it,” he says. And he can. He knows he can. And this matters. Bad aim and bad technique make you miss your shot and that puts your comrades in danger. He knew that when he was eight years old, these guys have no excuse. 

“Good. I’m giving you the extra responsibility because I think you deserve it,” Sanders says. “You’re the best commander in the corps, Dean. Your men and women respect you and they follow you unquestioningly. That is a rare gift.” 

“Right.” Dean huffs out a grim smile. “Thanks. I guess.” 

“I’ll need some sort of training plan from you. Just a run-down of what sort of techniques and regimes you want to use. This is basic training, remember? New recruit stuff. You know the drill.” 

Jesus, more paperwork. Awesome. So far this added responsibility gig sucks big time. “Of course,” he says. 

Sanders reaches to pick up a document lying in his in-tray. “That is all, Red Leader.” 

Dean salutes and leaves the office.

He retraces his steps back to their room, wanting to get Sam’s opinion on what the hell he’s supposed to do with the new recruits. He has some ideas and he knows he can do a much better job than what Ruiz and Gilet are doing right now. They’re old school, which works just fine when your enemy’s some poor unlucky human bastard, not so fine when your enemy’s something else entirely, that takes a different mindset, the kind of mindset he and Sam were raised on. It’s something he’s been banging into the heads of every newbie sent his way, giving them some serious tough love, trying to get them up to his own Winchester standards. And okay, he knows that his own standards are high, (Sammy will testify to that), but they’re fighting for the survival of their species out there, they can’t take shortcuts. 

Back at their room, he slides his pass-card out of his pocket and swipes the lock. The bed is empty, perfectly made. Sam’s not there. 

He curses under his breath and gives the room a quick scan. The prosthesis is still propped up against the wall by the bed where he left it last night. Huh. So did Sam actually listen to him for once and keep the leg off for the day? 

Not fucking likely. More likely, Sam was hurting so much when he got up that he decided to leave it off which – not so good news. 

He leaves the room, and heads for the lab. He buzzes the intercom and frowns as it takes a full minute for Sam’s face to come onto the blurred video-screen and demand: “Yeah? Who is it?” 

“It’s me,” he answers. 

The lab is quiet; only Sam and Suzie seem to be working today, both of the other two nerds, Ron and the other dude whose name Dean never remembers, are missing again. It always seems to be that way. Suzie’s a good worker but Sam puts in twice as many hours as those other two jokers put together despite having no formal scientific qualifications. Apparently all three of Sam’s co-workers used to have real jobs working for drug companies or universities or hospital research labs or even freaking L’Oreal in Ron’s case, but Sam’s expertise with monsters and monster carcasses outstrips that of every motherfucker on the base so they grudgingly accepted him. In Dean’s opinion, the whole setup is a freaking joke. They’re damned lucky to have Sam and even luckier that Sam doesn’t seem to care that the other three are blatantly taking advantage of his workaholic tendencies. Then again, Sam really enjoys what he’s doing and would probably sleep in the goddamn lab if Dean let him. But that’s his little brother: overachieving, dedicated, geeky Sammy, the uber-researcher, the Nerd King himself. 

Sam’s back at his desk, frowning at his computer screen and tapping at his keyboard with one finger. Dean crosses the room, sparing a brief nod of hello for Suzie, and looms over his brother. Sam’s desk is a mess, piles of papers and books and files taking up every inch of space. It’s the kind of mess Sam doesn’t tolerate in their private quarters, but he seems to thrive on it here. 

There’s a corkboard fastened to the wall above Sam’s desk with a couple of photographs pinned to it: the first old and faded, creased across the middle where Sam carried it in his wallet for so many years. It’s the photo they found in Dad’s motel room all those years ago, during Sam’s first hunt away from Stanford; it shows the three of them after a fishing trip posed on the trunk of the Impala, young Sammy on Dad’s knees, Dean sitting beside them and leaning into Dad. The other photo is much more recent; Suzie took it at the compound Xmas celebration two years ago: him and Sam, arms thrown around each other’s shoulders, cups of paint-stripper homebrew in their hands and drunken bleary grins on their flushed faces. 

“What you doing, man?” he asks. 

Sam sighs and tilts his head back to blink up at Dean. “I don’t think you’d understand it.”

“Try me,” Dean says, hooking his foot around a nearby stool and dragging it closer. He plops down and turns to peer at the screen, elbows resting on the corner of Sam’s desk. Admittedly, the jumble of letters and numbers don’t make a whole lot of sense, but whatever, he’s not that freaking dumb, he could figure it out if he had any idea what any of it actually meant. 

Sam points at the blocks of numbers in a table with the end of his pen. “This is some of the data we got from the tests Suze ran overnight on the new specimen. We took samples from it, blood and other fluids and skin – the usual shit.” 

“Yeah? You find anything interesting?” 

“Potentially, yes.” Sam darts him a look and Dean can see the barely suppressed excitement in his brother’s expression, the way his mouth is twitching at the corners and the way his gaze eagerly springs back to linger over the table of numbers. “I’m not done analyzing it yet and Suze is still running more tests, but do you remember what I said last night about this creature looking younger than the previous ones we’ve had?” 

“Yeah,” Dean says.

“Yeah, well, it looks like I was right. The initial analysis of the skin and blood show that this specimen is barely a month old. But that’s not what’s interesting. It’s the make-up of the DNA. It’s not human.” 

“Well, no, man, they ain’t human,” Dean says, puzzled. 

“Yes, no, well – not entirely of course, but they were once human. All the mutants, they’re just human bodies that have been infected. This one is different. Its genetic make-up, what I can see in its DNA, just from a quick first glance – it, _God_ , Dean, it proves the hypothesis that we’ve been working on these past couple of months.” He pauses to turn his head and stare at Dean. His eyes are wide and lit-up, wholly focused on what he’s saying. It’s like the eureka moment of every single hunt. It’s like those times when Sam used to sit back in his chair and say _huh_ , and Dean would sit up and raise his eyebrows and Sam would come out with his explanation for whatever fucked-up shit they were dealing with in that particular town, eyes lit up and mouth trying not to break into a huge excited smile, Sam’s _I figured it all out_ look. 

“What?” Dean says. 

“They’re reproducing,” Sam states plainly. 

Dean blinks. “Huh? What?” 

“They’re reproducing, Dean. It’s the only explanation for it.” 

“But it’s – it’s fully grown, dude. It’s no baby; it’s like some big motherfucker.” 

Sam gives him this look, this _well duh_ kinda look that makes Dean feel about as dumb as a two by four. 

“Well, obviously, they’re not breeding like most vertebrates breed. For a start, they don’t have any sexual organs, so it’s got to be some form of asexual reproduction.” 

“Like amoebas and bacteria?” 

Sam looks at him in surprise, eyebrows raised. 

“What?” Dean says. “Hey, I used to watch the Discovery Channel. I know what asexual reproduction is. I saw this show once about this female shark being kept in a tank with no males around who managed to give birth on her own.” 

“I remember reading about that shark. But that’s parthenogenesis, it’s a little different. This," he gestures at the screen, hands shaking with excitement, “this is probably something like that – like some form of parthenogenesis. It’s gotta be.” 

“So these things are, like, somehow managing to give birth to themselves?” 

“Who the hell knows what they’re doing! We need more specimens like that one you picked up yesterday to even begin to understand what’s going on. But the one thing I’ve learned about these motherfuckers so far is that they don’t follow rules. With Nature and biology and science there are rules, and sure, you get instances when the rules aren’t followed, like that shark, and evolution is all about breaking existing rules and mutations and nature bettering itself.” The excitement’s really shining through now, his eyes lit-up, hands gesturing. Dean watches him, mesmerized, unable to look away. “What this specimen is is some sort of new generation. It’s a straight up monster mutant. This changes everything, Dean!” 

Dean shakes his head and blows out a breath. “Man, this makes me miss shapeshifters and skinwalkers and even freakin’ witches and I used to hate those sonsofbitches. At least, you knew where you were with them. These fuckin’ mutants…” He breaks off with a shudder. “They give me the goddamn heebie jeebies, Sammy. Though if what you’re sayin’ is right then we really are screwed.” 

“Perhaps not. We can still kill them, they still die.” 

He thinks suddenly of the battle yesterday, the machine gun bullets spraying uselessly through that group of five or six mutants that had attacked them from the north hill, that one group that had seemed immune to their regular bullets, the ones they’d had to waste with shotguns and grenades. Sam’s right, they do still die, but for how much longer? Sam’s still talking though, big hands gesticulating and eyes bright, more animated than Dean’s seen him in a long while, glancing from his screen to Dean’s face and back again. 

“…And if we can figure out some sort of vaccine then we could – I mean – that will change everything! We’ll have a real chance of survival. Of course they’ll probably just keep reproducing but at least they won’t be able to use human bodies for it.” 

“Right, the vaccine.” Dean purses his lips and shakes his head. “Well, good luck with that, man. I guess one of us gotta stay positive.” 

“Sure we do,” answers Sam with a shrug. He catches Dean’s eye, mouth tilting up into a half-smile, eyes brightening. “Dean, c’mon, you and me have faced worse odds than this. Remember Lucifer? Who knows – we could get lucky again.” 

“Yeah, I guess,” says Dean, unconvinced. 

“And think about it! We’re just beginning to scratch the surface here. There’s so much we don’t know, so much more we gotta find out. We might discover their fatal flaw.” 

“If you say so.” 

“Well, I’m really glad we had this morale boosting chat,” Sam says after a moment, that little superior smirk playing at the corner of his mouth as it always does when he’s being sarcastic. 

Whatever, it’s a good look on him, and Dean feels his stomach do that familiar lurching thing, fingers twitching to touch. He gives the lab a quick once-over; it’s momentarily deserted, Suzie disappeared somewhere and the other two guys still AWOL. He licks his lips and curls his hand around the back of his brother’s neck, pulling him into a kiss. Sam protests for a second, resisting and trying to say something, but Dean cuts him off, shoving his tongue down his brother’s throat and letting Sam make the choice of either kissing him back or choking to death. 

Sam makes the wise decision and gives in. He opens his mouth up to Dean and scoots to the edge of his chair to get a better angle, raising both hands to frame Dean’s face as he kisses him back. They pull apart after a few seconds and watch each other, mouths wet and faces flushed, expressions a little dazed. Dean smirks and the corner of Sam’s mouth quirks up, amused. 

“Sorry, couldn’t help myself,” Dean murmurs. 

“You ain’t sorry.” 

“You said ain’t.” 

Sam makes a face and pulls away. He picks up a pencil lying on top of several scribbled pages of notes and taps the eraser end against the desk, looking thoughtful for a second, then he raises his eyes to Dean’s and says, “Alright, I promise.” 

“Promise what?” 

“I promise that if I ever want to go down into the cages or get up close and personal with a conscious mutant, then I’ll radio you first to ask permission.” 

“Sam, this ain’t funny–“ 

“I’m not being funny.”

“Oh.” Dean hesitates, floundering. He risks a quick glance at Sam; Sam looks pensive, lip caught in his teeth. He means this. And that’s – well, that’s good; strange and out of character for his brother, but good. 

“Okay, well, I guess that would work,” he says. “You’d radio me first? Wait for me to come down here?” 

“Yes, Dean, I’d wait for you to get here to babysit my ass.”

“You know, you could just agree to not go anywhere near the fucking cages.” 

“No, I can’t agree to that.” 

“Why not? Let Robinson and his band of psychotic assholes handle that side of things. It’s how they get their rocks off anyway.” 

Sam makes an exasperated noise and taps his pencil against the desk again. “Dean, shut up. Just – agree to this, okay? I’m not making any promises I can’t keep. Not anymore.” He reaches out, curls one hand around Dean’s wrist, fingers lingering to give him a light squeeze. “Do we have a deal?” 

“Yeah, alright, okay, we have a deal,” Dean mutters.

“Good.” Sam removes his hand and turns his attention back to his computer screen. “Now get the hell out of here, I got work to do.” 

Dean leaves the lab, waving goodbye to Suzie, who’s just come out of the one of the freezers holding some stained slides in her hands. She blinks at him like she’s only just registered there’s anyone else in the world beside herself and her samples. Freaking nerd squad. 

He makes his way back towards the CIC, thinking over everything Sam said. Can the mutants really reproduce on their own? Parthenogenesis or whatever Sam called it. Asexual reproduction, just like little evil bacteria cells, dividing and conquering. 

Jesus Christ, whatever the fuck is going on out there, it definitely puts Mrs. Fitzgerald’s big fertility drive into perspective. 

Maybe this is the time to start praying again. 

Right, yeah, praying, ‘cause that had worked so damn well before. He can still remember that last time, Castiel’s voice confirming humanity’s destruction.

“You did it to yourselves; this is not Heaven’s problem, Dean.” 

And Dean had raged at him, begged him, pleaded with him, reminded him of their friendship, of Castiel’s own confessed affection for the hairless apes. But the angel had stood firm, had told him that Heaven wouldn’t and couldn’t intervene. 

“This is a matter for your people, Dean. Their folly and hubris have brought this plague down upon you all. We cannot act here. We will not act here.” 

He’d taken pity on Dean eventually, after he’d seen for himself what devastation had been wrought to the place he’d almost called home. Before he’d left for good, he’d made one last plea, appealing to both him and Sam. “The two of you will always have a place in Heaven. You’ve both earned it.” And then when he could see that he wasn’t getting through. “You will be together and you will be at peace. Please, just think about it. All that’s left for you here is destruction and death.” 

But Dean could remember Heaven, and he had no desire to return. Even if what he could remember was some fucked-up construct of that bastard Zachariah and not the “real” Heaven. Besides, their place was on earth, with the rest of the screwed-up, hubristic and doomed human race. They weren’t ready to go. 

In the end, Sam had been the one to speak up, to tell Castiel their final decision. 

“We’re not leaving.” 

That was the last time any representative of Heaven or Hell had spoken to them.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean has a routine. Friday afternoons, after Red Team training, he goes to Rick’s. There’s a couple of hours when the bar is quiet, when he can sit and drink and feel like that guy he used to be, the one who isn’t living on a military compound in a dystopian world where most of humanity is already extinct. He can imagine that he’s still Dean Winchester, hunter, and that Sam – Sam with both legs and not smelling of formaldehyde – is about to swing by any moment with pages of research and the answer to their current case. 

He takes his usual spot at the bar, propping his chin on his hands, elbows on the polished wood. 

“How are things going, Mr. Torrance?” 

He smirks and glances up to see Rick slide into view, dark hair slicked back and a bar-rag tossed over one shoulder. 

“Things could be better, Lloyd, things could be a whole lot better,” he says, slipping into character. 

“And what will you be drinking, Sir?” 

“Hair of the dog that bit me, Lloyd.” 

Rick chuckles and turns to deposit a just-poured glass of something golden brown and delicious in front of Dean. “There you go, Sir.” 

Dean sticks one hand in his pocket and draws it out, making a show of holding out his bare palm. “Say, I seem to be a little light right now. How’s my credit in this joint, Lloyd?” 

“You’re credit’s fine, Sir, just fine.” 

Dean nods and raises the glass to his lips for a long refreshing sip. He sighs gratefully and places the glass back on the bar, raising his hand to point his trigger-finger at Rick. 

“You are a prince among bartenders, Lloyd, a prince among bartenders.” 

“I don’t think that’s the line,” says Rick with a smirk, fake British accent fading away and regular Philly fading back in. 

Dean shrugs, ditching his patented Jack-impression. “Meh, whatever. I’m improvising. And dude, you have no idea how much I needed this.” He takes a savoring sip, smacking his lips together. God it tastes good, so much better than the home-brewed rot-gut Rick usually serves up. It pays to have an in at this joint, even if that in just consists of a shared geek-on for _The Shining._

Rick chuckles and moves along the bar, swishing his disgusting looking rag along the chipped wood. He dips down behind the bar for a second then reappears with something in his hand, turning back to call, “Hey, gotta show you something.” 

“Yeah, what?” 

He grins and drops a CD in a plastic wallet in front of Dean. 

“It’s a CD.” 

“Yeah,” says Rick, pushing it across the bar towards Dean with one finger. “Take a closer look.” 

Dean flicks his gaze from Rick’s enthusiastic expression back down to the CD. It’s a home-burnt one, the kind that was already on the way to becoming obsolete back before the world ended, replaced by I-Pods and Nanos and whatever else little pieces of flimsy, kiddy-colored crap the kids were going for. Not that he cared, he’d always hated CD’s, damn things were not a patch on classic vinyl or even cassette tapes. 

“Look at the track list,” Rick prompts excitedly. 

Dean gives him a look, and reads off the label: “ _Rick’s Mix! The Best of Rick’s Bar_.” 

“Yeah! Exactly! It’s my own mix, all the favorite tracks from the karaoke here. A few of yours too, man. _Every Rose Has Its Thorn? November Rain? Dream On?_ Hey, hey? Whatcha think?” 

“It’s a mix-tape,” Dean states, eyebrows climbing up his forehead. 

“A mix CD! For morale.” 

“You made a mix tape of power ballads for morale. Sorry, man, just ain’t seeing the connection here.” 

“Dude, you been livin’ under a rock, or what?” Rick scoffs. “Spring Fling? The big dance? It’s Mrs. Fitzgerald’s idea, I reckon she’s just hoping that a load more single folk will hook up, more babies for her machine I guess. But I’m holdin’ it here." He spreads his arms, taking in the entire bar. “It’s gonna be awesome. April 14th, you should totally come. Trust me, everyone’s gonna be hookin’ up. And you could do with the action. Gotta give your right hand a break at some point, man.” He snickers at his own joke, smirking at Dean. 

Dean rolls his eyes at him. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

Rick smirks again and Dean glances back down at the CD, trying not to think about the stupid fucking dance, ‘cause seriously, a fucking dance? In his bar? The bar where he drinks? 

Was nothing sacred anymore? 

“So what’s with the CD?” he asks after a moment. “What’s that got to do with this dance?” 

“Oh right, yeah, so I’m gonna give them away to every couple who comes, like party favors. I’ve started copying them already. You know how it is with the electrical shortages; I can only manage one or two a day at the most, gotta start early. You can keep that one. Give it to some lucky chick.” 

He immediately thinks of Sam, and hides his grin, sliding the CD into the pocket of his pants. Rick winks at him and turns to pass out through the swinging doors at the back to the storeroom. 

“Commander Winchester? I haven’t seen you in a while,” another voice greets him. 

He looks up to see Dr. Gerard sliding onto the stool beside him. “Doc,” he nods in acknowledgement. “How are things?” 

The doctor shrugs his shoulders, flicks an envious glance at the finger of whiskey left at the bottom of Dean’s glass. “Things are fine. In fact, I just came off a long surgery. Anna Pilkington delivered twins. C-section, rather a complicated one. Still, mother and babies are doing fine.” 

Dean nods, he has no idea who Anna Pilkington is, and quite honestly, doesn’t particularly care. There are kids being born every single day on this base. He just hopes the poor bastards know what they’re in for. 

“Sam called me into the lab yesterday,” the doctor says after a minute or so of awkward silence. 

Dean resists the urge to flinch at the sound of his brother’s name on the doctor’s lips. This is the guy who took off Sam’s leg, and okay so he knows it’s totally illogical to resent him for it – for doing what’s supposed to be his damn job – but Dean’s never been logical when it comes to Sam, and he’s never been able to forgive the doctor for maiming his brother. 

“Did he?” 

“Yes, he asked me to take a look at some tests he’d run on a mutant they’re keeping down there. He needed a medical opinion.” He leans in, lowers his voice. “The results are _remarkable_.” 

“They’re breeding,” Dean says. 

The doctor nods, licking his lips, that same bright spark of excitement in his face as was on Sam’s the other day. 

“For all intents and purposes, yes. Which is incredible, in itself.” He breaks off, blows out a long breath. “I think I disappointed your brother. He wanted me to give him some medical reason for it, but I couldn’t.” 

“So, they’re not breeding?” Dean asks, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. 

“No, yes, well,” the doctor pauses, chuckles grimly. “When we compared the new creature’s DNA with an older specimen, an infected, mutated human, there was no other explanation. The fundamental patterns, the genetic coding is completely different. But _how_ they’re doing it? I have no idea.” 

It makes no sense. That’s the bottom line. Just like the entire past five years, just like their lives right now. They beat Lucifer. _Sam_ beat Lucifer. They beat the devil and angels and heaven and hell. They saved the world. And yet still humanity dies. None of it makes a lick of sense. 

“I took a look at the creature myself. It looked nothing like the ones I remember from three years ago. The physiognomy is different, the musculature. They are evolving right in front of us.” 

Dean smiles thinly. “Right. Souped up evolution. That’s what we’re up against. Christ, we really are doomed.” 

“Your brother doesn’t think so.” 

“No, well, Sam doesn’t give up. He never has.” 

“No, he doesn’t,” the doctor agrees. “I never knew a patient before him who was so driven, so single-minded about his recovery.” 

“Well, that’s Sammy.” 

They fade into an awkward silence; Dean drains the rest of his glass and turns to the doctor. 

“Well, see you around, Doc.” He smacks the guy on the shoulder, a little harder than necessary perhaps, but whatever, and leaves the bar. 

 

**

 

“This is for me?” 

Sam regards the CD dubiously. 

“Yeah, a mix CD of famous love songs for my special girl,” says Dean, trying and failing to keep the glee from his voice. “ _November Rain? I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)? Romeo and Juliet? I Need A Hero?_ All your favorites!” 

“Right,” Sam says. “Hilarious.” He drops the CD onto the table. “You’re totally hilarious, Dean.” 

“Dude, c’mon, I thought that was worth at least a blowjob?” Dean says, turning what he hopes is his most winning smile on his brother. 

Sam snorts, and gives him an incredulous look. “A crappy home-made CD of power ballads is not worth a blow job.” 

“Well, can’t you just do it anyway? ‘Cause you love my dick so much? C’mon, man, you haven’t blown me in freakin’ ages!” 

Sam laughs out loud, tossing his head back, his eyes shining with real amusement and affection. Dean watches him, that warm feeling in his chest, hooking at his insides. 

“Un-fucking-believable,” Sam says, but he’s smiling. He pushes back his chair, the legs scraping on the tile. He’s not wearing the prosthetic, his left pants leg hanging loosely around his thigh. He pats his one knee. “C’mere.” 

Dean moves to sink down into his brother’s lap, straddling his thighs and hooking his feet around the legs of his chair. He can feel the edges of his brother’s stump against his ass, and he shifts forward a little, pressing his crotch and his rapidly hardening cock into Sam’s flat belly, feeling Sam’s own cock start to come awake under him. 

“Hey,” Sam murmurs. He cups Dean’s cheek, turns his face so their eyes meet. He’s smiling, that small, private, can’t-hold-it-back smile, thumb brushing tenderly along Dean’s lower lip. 

“Hey,” Dean says, he flicks out his tongue, works it against the pad of Sam’s finger. He tastes of food, soap and that vaguely lab-tang of chemicals and formaldehyde. 

They kiss for a while, just the sound of their lips and mouths and tongues smacking and slurping and sucking in the quiet room. Sam’s still got his hand on Dean’s cheek, the other around his back, holding him in place, while Dean’s hands frame his brother’s face, fingers disappearing into his hair. He pulls away, dragging Sam’s bottom lip between his teeth, then letting it go, seeing it slip back into place with a slick, popping sound. 

“You wanna fuck?” he says. 

Sam blinks, swoop of his eyelashes up and down. “Yeah,” he says. He sounds hoarse, and he clears his throat. “Want you to ride me, like this, right here.” 

“Think the chair can take it?” Dean kicks one foot against the chair leg, quirks up an eyebrow. 

“It can take it!” Sam’s response is gravelly, and Dean feels his stomach clench, spin and topple, heat bursting up all the way from his groin, making his fingertips tingle. 

He licks his lips and climbs off his brother. He undresses quickly, no finesse, no dragging it out, just flinging off shirt, pants, undershirt and shorts and throwing the lot to the floor. He hurries over to the nightstand, snatches up the lube he’d wheedled out of Creepy Benson in Medical Stores. He waves it in the air, says: “You wanna do it, or me?” 

“You do it,” Sam says, and Dean smirks, licks his lips again. “Okay.” 

He climbs onto the bed on all fours, sees Sam turn his chair, angle his body so he can watch him. Sam’s cupping himself through the thin scrub pants, his cock big and thick and indecent, outlined in the pale blue cotton. The sight reminds him suddenly of a story Sam told him years ago: sixteen year old Sammy in gym class, all the girls staring at him in his gym shorts, how embarrassed he’d been with his long gangly limbs and awkward body, how all the girls had stared at him – at the outline of his big cock in those tight little shorts. Sam had told him the tale afterwards, blushing and breathless and coy, watching for his big brother’s reaction, slicking that little pink tongue over his lower lip, knowing exactly what he was doing to Dean, and Dean had made him put on those little shorts, watched how they hugged his ass and showcased his long, slim cock. He’d pushed Sam to the floor, climbed on top of him and ripped down the shorts, going down on his brother right there and then in the middle of that crummy motel room in Akron, Dad about to walk through the door at any minute. 

Dean shivers at the memory, squeezing lube onto his fingers and coating the first two digits. He blinks, locks his gaze with Sam’s and then slowly, pushes one finger, then another, up inside himself. He works them in and out for a couple of minutes, the only noise in the room the slippery sound of his fingers and Sam’s harsh, quickened breathing. 

Sam stares at him, lips parted, fingers fumbling with the drawstring of his scrub pants. He wriggles them down over his hips then tugs off his shirt, hair standing up all which ways. He licks his lips unconsciously, and Dean stares back at him, eyes drawn down to the place where Sam’s enormous hand is playing with that goddamn freaking tent-pole he calls a dick. Sam raises his fingers to his mouth and sucks on each one, lips and cheeks hollowing around each digit. He slicks up his cock like that, with just his own spit, skimming shiny fingertips over the fat, red head, and down the big, straining length until it’s dripping and glossy and fucking _obscene._

“Jesus, okay, that’s it, I’m done,” Dean pants. He hasn’t opened himself up enough, he knows that, but he doesn’t care. He hasn’t got the patience; he needs Sam to be inside him, like, _now_. He wipes off his sticky, gross fingers on his discarded shorts and jumps off the bed, feeling that weird squelching in his ass as he moves. It’s uncomfortable and disgusting and he can already feel it starting to dribble down his thighs, but it’s all worth it, at least it all _will_ be worth it, really damn soon. 

He stands over Sam, straddling his chair, dick at full-mast, almost poking Sam in the eye. Sam tilts his head back, smirks evilly. 

“Turn around, Dean,” he says. 

Dean swallows, coil of heat simmering in his groin and gut as he turns around, putting his ass in his brother’s face. Sam grabs his hips, long fingers spread-eagled across his ass-cheeks, parting him open, thumbs digging into his hip-bones hard enough to leave marks. Dean’s breathing stutters for a couple of beats, he curls his fingers around the edge of the table in front of him, tensing and shivering as he feels his brother’s hot breath puffing against his exposed asshole. 

“All shiny and wet for me,” Sam murmurs. “All opened up. Are you ready? Can you take me?” 

Dean shudders, clings to the table. “Yeah, I – I’m ready, Sam.” His voice is hoarse, broken and guttural, his cock bobbing around, so damn hard. 

Sam chuckles, he presses his lips to the top of Dean’s ass crack, kisses him, just an evil hint of tongue, lingering, tasting. 

“You taste so good,” he growls. “If you weren’t full of lube, I’d eat you out, Dean. Push my tongue up your ass-crack and taste your insides.” 

He tightens his grip on Dean’s hips, and forces him down onto his cock. Dean gasps for breath, scrabbles harder for a hold on the table, shaking as he feels Sam’s cock push at his entrance. _Man_ , it’s big, and _man_ , it fucking hurts. He’s never gotten used to this part, just how freaking painful this part is, the part when Sam shoves that freaking monster up his poor stretched asshole. Sam stills for a second, and curls his arm tightly around Dean, big hand splayed over the place where Dean’s heart is trying to thump its way out of his body. He leans in, presses a couple of soft kisses to Dean’s back, reassuring and adoring. 

“Hey, hey, relax, breathe, it’s okay, just relax…”

Dean forces his body to obey, forces his muscles to let go, to remind his stupid brain that they like this. This is good. This is awesome. This is sex with Sam. This is the best fucking thing in the entire goddamn universe. 

He sinks down onto the rest of Sam’s cock. 

“Fuck, Sammy, fuck,” he mutters. 

Sam laughs, a little hysterical, breathy and incoherent, peppering more kisses, slurping his tongue over Dean’s back, and that’s gotta be gross. He can feel how much he’s sweating, but Sam doesn’t seem to give a fuck, just intent on covering as much of Dean’s back as possible with his mouth, lapping up his sweat. 

He starts to work himself up and down on Sam’s cock, feet braced on the floor, hands braced on the table, Sam’s arms around him and his face buried in the crook of Dean’s neck. The back of his left knee is covering the place where the rest of Sam’s left leg used to be, and it’s no longer strange, that _lack_ of something. It’s just Sam, Sam how he is now, Sam who may have lost parts of himself to this – to the never-ending fight – but Sam who is still his, still completely his. 

He winds his arm up and around the back of his brother’s neck, bringing their bodies flush together. Sam thrusts up, again and again, until Dean is bottoming out, gasping and speechless with the sensation of his brother’s cock splitting him open. Sam opens his mouth over the tendon in Dean’s throat, mouths at it. He can’t bite, they can’t risk it, not when so many people would see, and Dean feels a pang of loss for it, for what they used to do so thoughtlessly when it was just the two of them. Instead he pushes down harder, impaling himself completely, hearing Sam cry out helplessly. 

_“Oh God, Dean, oh God…”_

He can feel the flood of his brother’s release inside him; feel the burst of hot sticky warmth and the twitching and throbbing of Sam’s cock. Sam grips onto him tighter, shudder running through his body, he bends to place haphazard kisses along Dean’s jaw. “Christ, Dean, so good, God…” mangled words mixed up with crazy wet kisses. 

Dean smiles blissfully, and pats his brother’s arm. He pulls out of his grasp, stands up, legs shaky as Sam’s cock slides out of him. He twists around, 180 degrees, and straddles his brother’s lap once more, chest to chest, face to face. 

“Finish me,” he orders. 

Sam blinks dazedly and makes a fist around Dean’s erection. He hasn’t come yet, doesn’t usually come when Sam’s inside him, but he’s close, goddamnit, he’s close. 

He presses his forehead to Sam’s cheek, breathes in his scent as Sam gives his dick a couple of lopsided tugs. That’s all he needs, and he’s coming into Sam’s fingers, panting into the side of Sam’s face. 

They stay like that for a couple of minutes, getting their breath back. Dean winces and gets up off his brother’s lap, limping as he moves to collapse onto the bed. He sprawls onto his back and sighs, chest still heaving up and down with exertion and body tingling all over. 

“Man, that – that – was awesome,” he pants. 

Sam chuckles and Dean hears the sound of the chair scraping back, Sam getting to his feet (well, foot) and hopping to the bed. He sinks down and reaches to run a lazy hand through Dean’s sweat drenched hair. 

Dean peers up at his brother; Sam’s looking down at him, his face is still flushed, lips cherry red, eyes dark and liquid. 

“It wasn’t bad,” Sam says. 

“Fuck you, it was awesome. I’m gonna be feeling it for days.” 

It’s true. He can feel that throbbing, sticky feeling in his ass, feel the dribble of come and lube trickling down onto the bed. 

“I think I’m leaking onto the sheets,” he says. 

Sam shoves him in the side, forcing him to roll over. Dean laughs, props himself up on one elbow to view the sticky patch where he’s been laying. 

“You’re sleeping in that,” Sam says. 

“Man, first you fuck me then you make me sleep in the wet patch. What kinda deal is that?” 

“Oh, yeah, you got it so bad.” Sam smirks at him and scoots up the mattress until he’s sitting at the head. He spreads his legs, pats the space between them. Dean crawls into the V of his thighs; lets Sam wind his arm around his chest and lean down to kiss the side of his mouth. “Imagine if your guys could see you now, Dean. Their big bad commander. Letting his little brother fuck him in the ass and then cuddle with him.” His voice is deep with amusement and that possessive edge that makes the hairs on Dean’s scalp prick up. 

“We’re not cuddling,” he says. 

“Sure we are,” says Sam. “And you love it.” 

He makes a scoffing sound but he doesn’t bother denying it out loud. Sam’s got his number as always. And it’s these kinds of moments that make everything worth it, that remind him why they’re still here, why they haven’t taken Castiel up on his offer yet. He has no idea what Heaven’s really like, but he doubts that you get to do what they just did in Heaven. 

He places one hand on Sam’s left thigh, traces a soft pattern in the skin just above the end of his stump. “This looks better,” he says. It does look better, the rash not quite as red and virulent as a few days ago. He cups his palm around the end stump, brushes his fingertips over the shiny, smooth skin. 

He can remember the first time they’d had sex after Sam’d recovered from his operation. Afterwards Sam had cried, fat tears flowing down his face, and Dean had watched him in mingled horror and disbelief and wondered if he’d broken his brother. 

“I thought you’d never want me again,” Sam had eventually managed to sob out, burying his face in Dean’s chest and smearing his sticky tears all over Dean’s skin like he was four years old again. 

“You dumb fuck,” Dean had chastised him and Sam had laughed, shaky and teary-eyed, and called him an insensitive asshole. 

Later Dean had said it better: “You’re still Sam, you’re still my brother. I’m always gonna want you.” 

Sam drops his hand down on top of Dean’s, twines their fingers together, forcing his hand away from his leg and back down to the mattress. 

“You know you don’t have to touch it to prove anything to me,” he says quietly. 

“Huh?” Dean turns his head to look at his brother, genuinely confused. 

Sam’s not looking back at him, eyes locked on some neutral boring spot on the opposite wall. “You know what I mean, Dean. You don’t gotta pretend that it doesn’t bother you, when I know it does.” 

Dean resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Right, yeah, ‘cause I’m totally fakin’ it with you. ‘Cause I can’t stand touching you anymore and that part just then when you fucked me up the ass was just a really sticky dream.” 

Sam makes no response, but Dean can hear him grinding his teeth, his expression gone cold and set. 

“Okay, fine, whatever, feel sorry for yourself, Sam! Jesus!” 

He gets off up the bed and stalks to the bathroom. 

Two minutes into his three minute shower, Sam comes in, hopping on one crutch. He lowers himself to the edge of the bathtub, sitting on the end rim, eyes locked on somewhere around Dean’s knees. 

He waits until the shower switches itself off before he sighs and looks up at Dean. Dean blinks the water out of his eyes and meets his brother’s gaze. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam says. 

Dean shrugs. “You don’t got anything to be sorry for, but okay, apology accepted.” He steps out the tub, grabs up the towel and starts to dry himself off. 

“It’s just that – I’ve been thinking, and I think that maybe you should ask someone to the Spring Fling dance, like Navarro’s sister for example.” 

He blinks at his brother. “Come again?” 

Sam sets his mouth, meeting Dean’s gaze. “You heard, Dean. I think you should ask Navarro’s sister to the dance. I think it would be a good idea.” 

“In what freakin’ world would that be a good idea?” Dean snaps. “Christ, Sammy, you remember what happened to the last woman I was with, right? You remember what happened with Lisa and Ben? You remember how I had to put a bullet in their heads after they tried to fuckin’ _eat me_? You remember all that? You remember what a cluster-fuck it was even before the part where they tried to fuckin’ _eat me_? You remember how I only went to them in the first place ‘cause you were dead and ‘cause it was your dying wish? You remember how she dumped my screwed-up ass and I was fuckin’ miserable? You do remember all that, Sam? All that wasn’t some Bobby Ewing shower deal.” 

He knows his voice is getting louder, that he’s almost growling. But Sam’s gone from looking all serious and stubborn to just looking faintly amused, that annoying, teasing crease between his eyebrows. 

“Please tell me this ain’t some bullshit _you’re better off without me Dean_ deal, ‘cause I can give you my answer in three simple words: No. Fucking. Way. You ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easy!” 

“Are you done?” 

Dean grits his teeth, nods abruptly. “Yeah, yeah, I’m done. For now.” 

Sam ducks his head and when he looks up again Dean can see that he’s trying to hold back a smile and not making a good job of it. The little shit’s laughing at him. 

“Dean, listen to me, just think about this for a moment. This isn’t just about you and me. This is about us – our position here – what we’re trying to achieve here. People are getting suspicious, hell, they’re already suspicious. They think our relationship is weird. They don’t say it to you because you’re Commander Dean Winchester, the great Red Leader; you’re Sanders’ golden boy. But I hear it and sometimes I get it to my face–“ 

“Who the fuck is saying that?" Dean interrupts, anger flaring. If any fucking asshole has said anything to Sam, if anyone has– 

“Dude, no.” Sam holds up a hand. “I can handle it. Jesus, Dean, I can look after myself. You know that. But, this is real. This is something we gotta deal with. People are beginning to suspect that something weird – that – well. They’re starting to suspect the truth. They think we’re too close. They talk about how you turn down every chick that comes onto you. They talk about how both of us are being selfish by not having a family, or contributing to Mrs. Fitzgerald’s big plan.” 

“Ugh, that argument is fuckin’ bullshit, Sam!” he interrupts. “I know Mrs. Fitzgerald has this big hard-on for repopulating the Earth starting with our little compound family. But seriously, come on! Would you wanna be born into this?” He throws out his arms, taking in their room, the compound, the fucking Pacific Northwest, the continent of North America, the entire damn world. “We’re fighting for our lives and we’re outnumbered. D’you think all those poor babies being popped out down in the infirmary are gonna thank us when they realize what we’ve left for them?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, Dean, but getting back to my point: this isn’t about me pushing you off onto some poor, unsuspecting chick for your own good. I don’t want you to get involved with someone else. I don’t want to share you, Dean. Jesus, you know that. This is not about that; it’s about how we look to everyone else. If you ask someone to the dance then it’ll send out the right message, it’ll deflect attention away from us. Just ask Navarro’s sister, she’d say yes in a heart-beat. She’s pretty gone for you.” That last part comes out a little snitty despite Sam’s best efforts at trying to sound all rational and practical. 

“Which is why there’s no freakin’ way I’m asking her! It ain’t fair. On me or on her! I’m not stringing her along. I can’t believe you would even suggest that!” 

Sam rolls his eyes exasperatedly. “Dean…”

“What?” 

“I know you don’t like the idea, but I think we should seriously consider it.” 

“Why? Why don’t you ask some chick to the fuckin’ Spring Fling if you’re so keen on deflecting people’s attention away from us?” 

“Because there’s no one who’d go with me.” 

“Bullshit! There are tons of chicks who’d jump at the chance to go with you. You’re just chicken-shit.” 

“Right, tons of chicks, sure,” Sam scoffs. His jaw is clenched, the muscle ticking ominously at the edge of his pressed together mouth. “Tons of chicks who want to attend the dance with a cripple, a guy who can’t even dance! A guy with one leg who spends all his time locked up with mutants, a guy that half the base thinks is in creepy, incestuous love with his brother! Oh, yeah, I’m a catch.” 

“Now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself. Again.” 

He leaves the bathroom, hearing Sam scrabbling around for his crutch, taking after him. He stands in the middle of their room, trying to remember if they did some laundry and if he has any clean boxers or if – _oh gross_ – he’s gonna have to wear the ones he used to mop up his and Sam’s jizz. 

“In the corner,” Sam says, gesturing to the bag of clean laundry with the end of his crutch. 

“Oh right, yeah, thanks.” He bends down to heave the bag up on the bed. 

“For the record, I did ask someone,” Sam says. 

“What?” He does a double-take, shorts half-way up his legs. 

“I did ask someone to the dance.” 

“Yeah? Who?” He pulls the shorts all the way up, tucks in his cock and balls. 

“Yeah, there’s this – uh – nurse, called Julie Ross. She’s friendly with Suzie, comes by the lab sometimes. I asked her and she turned me down, made some bullshit excuse about needing to work. She doesn’t need to work, Suze told me before I even asked her that she was free that evening. I guess I should be grateful that she even bothered to come up with an excuse instead of just turning me down flat.” 

Dean hesitates, caught somewhere between angry (and jealous) resentment at Sam being interested enough in some chick to even bother asking her to the dumb dance and cold fury that the same chick had the gall to turn down his brother. How fucking dare she? He swallows hard, thins his lips, not looking at Sam. 

“Right, I see.” 

“Yeah, so, I’m not chicken-shit.”

“Whatever.” 

“Dean, c’mon, it wasn’t like that.” 

“You wanted people to think you weren’t in creepy, incestuous love with your big brother. Right, yeah, I heard you. I heard you loud and clear. Except – maybe did you think that perhaps I don’t give a flying fuck what other people think of us? That I don’t care if other people think that we’re in love with each other.” 

“You can’t be serious–“ 

“The world is fucked, Sam!” he interrupts, cutting Sam off. “I keep sayin’ this, but no one listens. We’re all doomed. We’re gonna last for however much longer and then we’ll die. Either you’ll go first and then I’ll put a bullet in my head and follow you, or it’ll be the other way round. We got maybe a couple of years left here, until those things out there figure out a way to get in and finish us off. I don’t wanna spend however long we do got left fuckin’ around playing politics and pretending to be something I’m not, leading on some poor chick or making out like you ain’t everything to me.” He pauses, licks his lips. “I don’t want that and I don’t understand why you care what they think so much. You never used to give a crap! I remember when we were out there – we didn’t care who saw us when we rolled up in a two-horse town and started making out in the motel parking lot or getting rooms with one fuckin’ bed. We didn’t care who knew about us!” 

“That’s not true,” Sam retorts. “You never let me tell Bobby. All those years and you always refused to come clean.” 

Dean throws his head back in exasperation. “That wasn’t about me! That was about Bobby! You think he would’ve thanked us for telling him that we were screwing each other? Not damn likely!” He breaks off, snorts, “Anyway, he probably knew. He wasn’t dumb.” 

“No, no, he wasn’t,” says Sam. 

Dean turns his head, watches his brother sink back down into the chair where they’d just fucked, the chair where they’d had that awesome sex only fifteen minutes ago. It’s amazing how he can feel nostalgic for something that happened only fifteen minutes ago, but he is, wishing they could go back to that moment when Sam was pushing inside him and growling his name, instead of right now, when they’re fighting with each other. Again. 

Sam leans forward, rests his elbows on the table, dropping his head into his hands. Dean watches him for a second, then sighs and crosses the room. He places one hand on top of Sam’s messy hair, carding his fingers gently through the thick, dark strands and scattered threads of grey. 

Sam lifts his head, blinks up at Dean. His eyes look very big from this angle, his expression open and uncertain, and Dean feels a tug in his chest, his throat going dry, like swallowed sand. Sometimes he thinks he has a handle on how much he loves his brother, on how much Sam means to him, and then Sam will say something or do something or look at him in a certain way and Dean will know all over again that he’s never going to be able quantify this – this thing they share. He’s never going to be able to count all the ways. 

Sam blinks again then nods. “You’re right, I know you’re right. We don’t know how much time we got left. We should live like we got no regrets, like every day’s our last.” 

“And all those other clichés,” Dean adds, lips cracking up into a faint smile. 

The edges of Sam’s mouth twitch. “Yeah, all those clichés, carpe freaking Diem, right?”

“Right,” Dean agrees. “So no stupid dance? I mean, I already gave you the free CD – no other damn reason to go.” 

Sam chuckles, his smile widening, those dimples slicing into his cheeks. “No dance.” 

Dean pats his cheek, thumb brushing against his bottom lip, down to the cleft in his chin. “That’s my boy.” 

 

**

 

He’s got a couple of hours downtime before the Red Team are due on the other side of the wall so he heads to the gym for a quick work-out, priming his body and mind for the upcoming mission. 

He’s working out, sweating hard as he slides forwards and backwards on the base’s ancient rowing machine when his radio crackles from its place on his discarded towel. 

“Red Leader, come in, Red Leader, this is Command.” 

Damn it. He skids to a stop, blinks the sweat out of his eyes and climbs off the machine. He wipes his sweaty palms off on his towel and reaches for the radio. He depresses the button, gritting his teeth as he barks: “Anderson, I’m off duty until 1200 hours.” 

“Yes, Sir, I know that, Sir,” Anderson replies breathlessly. “It’s just – your brother–“ 

“My brother?” he interrupts, annoyance immediately fading and pulse ratcheting up another level. “Is he okay? What’s going on?” 

“He gave me a message for you, Sir. Blue Team’s brought in a new hostile for processing. It’s in the lab.” 

“Okay, I’m on my way. Give him the message!” he answers. He towels off as much as he can, grabs up his weapon from his locker, and sets off at a jog towards the lab building. 

Sam’s bent over the gurney holding the new hostile when Dean enters the lab. He’s wearing a pair of white latex gloves and he’s prodding at something in the hostile’s mid-section, the sheet rolled all the way down to its feet, his cane propped against the side of the gurney. The two guys from the Blue Team are standing a few feet away, watching Sam and the hostile nervously. They straighten and salute as he comes in, looking relieved. 

“How many shots you give it?” he addresses the question to the taller of the two guys, Matthews. 

“Two, Sir. One out on the field and one just before we wheeled it into base.” 

“Give it two more,” he orders. 

Matthews hesitates, and Sam lifts his head up, frowns at the two of them. “Dean, I’m not sure that’s necessary. Give it too much and its system might not be able to handle it. We want it alive.” 

“Give it too little and it’ll wake up and take a bite out of you,” Dean retorts, his gaze colliding with his brother’s and holding. 

Sam thins his lips, and looks as if he’s about to say something else, but Dean speaks first, turning back to Matthews. 

“Give it another shot. That’s an order, soldier. Or do I have to remind you what an order is?” 

“No, Sir, of course not, Sir,” Matthews replies quickly, face flushing as his fingers fumble with the tranq gun hooked over his arm. 

Sam sighs loudly, picks up his cane and takes a couple of paces backwards, making room for Matthews. The kid presses the tranq gun up against the thing’s thigh, a mangled, grotesque ruin of putrid flesh and exposed bone. He pulls the trigger, the dosage slamming into the creature’s body. He steps back, nods at Dean. 

“Good,” Dean says. “So, where’s Robinson?” 

“He’s busy,” Sam says. He shuffles forward again, leaning back over the creature and starting to prod at something. “He’s gonna call up when he’s ready for us to take this one down there.” 

Dean swears under his breath, fucking Robinson, playing his little power games again. 

Sam looks up again, he looks amused. “It’s alright, man, it’s out cold.” 

Well, that’s easy for Sam to say, but it’s making Dean itchy being in the same room as one of those things. To be more precise, it’s making his trigger finger itchy, and he can see that Matthews and the other Blue Team kid look just as uncomfortable. 

“C’mere,” Sam says, beckoning him over with a crook of one of his long latex-covered fingers. “Wanna show you something.” 

Dean hesitates. If he’s totally honest then he really doesn’t want to look at whatever’s got Sam so excited. He always does his best to avoid looking at the mutants. Sure, he kills them, he takes aim at them down the barrel of a gun, but he never _looks_ at them. And he’s not the only one. The two soldiers aren’t looking at it either, too busy looking at everything _except_ the mutant. In fact, the vast majority of people on the compound, civilians especially – those who haven’t been beyond the wall in years – haven’t seen a mutant since the early days. It’s one of the reasons people are so suspicious and uncomfortable around Sam. 

He moves into the space beside his brother, close enough for their shoulders to brush but not close enough for the other two guys to notice anything. He sneaks a glance at Sam; Sam’s peering down at the creature with typical Sammy interest, that detached, fascinated intent that Dean can recall seeing on his brother’s face in so many morgues over the years. He watches Sam’s profile, sees his eyebrows draw together, a twitch in the muscle at his jaw barely hiding his excitement. Sam turns his head sideways, looks at him, quirks his mouth up into a smile. 

“This is fantastic, Dean.”

Dean purses his lips. “If you say so.” 

“I do! This one’s just like the one you brought me. One of the new generation. Look, look at this.” He cups the thing’s face with one hand, using the other to point at the bulbous growths around its chin and neck area, like enormous cysts bubbling and breaking through the flesh, the skin over them stretched paper thin like webbing. “Look at the development here. Look how different it is. Do you remember how they used to look? Before?” 

Dean forces himself to focus his eyes on the mutant’s face. Just a quick glance tells him that the features are a lot less humanoid than they used to be. He can remember four, five years ago when they first started appearing and spreading and infecting. Back then, they’d looked human, they’d even had eyes. Now they just have craters in the skin where the eyes used to be, the skin over the sockets, stretched and smooth like a plastic dummy. 

Sam’s poking away at something, lifting up a small skin flap on what Dean guesses is its nose. His stomach gives a lurch and he swallows back the wave of nausea, wondering for a second just how Sam can do this, how he can bear to touch it, never mind prod and examine and feel its horrible squelchy putrid skin even through latex gloves. He forces himself to look where Sam’s prodding, at the nose: it’s flat, barely any nostrils, snake-like slits in its face, supremely creepy. 

“It’s like a snake,” he says. 

Sam nods vigorously. “Yes, yes, exactly, man. They’re evolving so fast, it’s incredible.” 

Dean swallows, nods. “Right.” 

Sam lifts his eyes to him, quirks up his lips. “I’m freaking you out?” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Sam grins, sudden and stunning, and Dean feels his stomach lurch for an entirely different reason. Sam obviously sees it ‘cause his grin gets evil and he licks his lips, deliberate and provocative, eyes locked on Dean, daring him. 

Dean opens his mouth, about to say something, when the buzzer goes. 

Sam smirks at him, murmurs, “Hold that thought,” under his breath. He snaps off the latex gloves, tossing them to the gurney, and walks to the intercom. He presses the button, says, “Yeah?” 

There’s a muffled, static noise, too indistinct for Dean to make out, so he watches his brother’s face instead and sees him nod, satisfied. 

“Yeah, okay, we’re coming down,” Sam says. He turns back to Dean, nods at the gurney. “Cover it up. Robinson’s ready for us.” 

Dean picks up the edge of the sheet with his fingertips, wanting to touch as little as possible, concentrating on the white cotton and carefully not looking at the thing underneath it. 

“Uh, Sir, do we have to come with you?” Matthews asks. 

He looks nervous, face twitching as his eyes skitter over the covered gurney up to Dean’s face. 

Dean turns to Sam. “Do we need them?” 

Sam shrugs. “Reckon you and me can handle it from here.”

“That’s your answer, soldier,” Dean tells the two guys. “You’re dismissed.” 

They both salute him, not bothering to hide the expressions of relief as they practically run from the room. Dean watches them go then turns back to Sam. Sam’s smiling at him, that teasing gleam back in his eyes.

“You know, I love watching you boss them around like that,” Sam says, his tone almost conversational. 

“Yeah?” He leers at his brother, “Does it make you all tingly and hot inside, Sammy?” 

“You bet it does.” 

Dean closes the space between them, slides one arm around Sam’s back, the other going up to cup the side of his face. “If we didn’t have to get that freakin’ mutant processed right now, I’d go down on you right here. Amongst your samples and microscopes, all your scientific shit. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Like me to blow you right here?” 

Sam gulps, face flushing, eyes darkening. “Dean, wait…” 

Dean leans in, presses his lips to Sam’s skin, breathes in his scent. “God, you smell of this place, it’s fuckin’ crazy but it gets me so damn hard sometimes. Just this smell – it’s disgusting, but it reminds me of you – how you smell.” 

“Yeah, Dean, but not now – later, not now. We can’t–” 

Dean shuts him up, cuts off his half-hearted protests with his mouth, teeth sinking into his brother’s lower lip, teasing at it, sucking it into his mouth. Sam responds greedily, tongue thrusting, long fingers hooking into Dean’s collar, ghosting over the nape of his neck. The kiss lengthens, lingers; Sam’s hand sliding under the waistband of Dean’s sweats to squeeze his ass and force their hips closer together. 

They pause, catching their breath, and Sam pulls his head back, making a frustrated, hungry sound at the back of his throat. 

Dean swallows hard, caresses the side of his brother’s face. “You – what you do to me, Sam,” he murmurs, his voice sounding unbearably tender in his ears. 

Sam doesn’t say anything for long moment, just stares back at him, slicking his tongue over his reddened lips, the flush high across his cheeks, his eyes alight. 

“Dean,” he says finally, “we – uh – we gotta–“ 

“Yeah, yeah. But, we are so coming back here and doin’ it one night. You gotta promise me, man?” 

Sam laughs, mouth snapping into one of those goddamn beautiful grins. He reaches to straighten the collar of Dean’s sweater, hand lingering, fingers brushing gently over his collarbone through the thin material. 

“Yeah, Dean, okay. That’s a promise. Now, c’mon, let’s move this thing, don’t wanna keep Robinson waiting.” 

“Fucker kept us waiting long enough,” Dean bitches, but he sighs and adjusts his sweatpants, trying to hide his erection. 

Sam smirks at him then turns to punch in a code to open the doors. He stands aside as Dean wheels the gurney through before he follows. 

As its name suggests, the cages is the base’s containment area for hostile and specimen mutants. Twenty cells line one long corridor on one side, soundproofed, glass-fronted prisons, each one about eight foot square, lit with bright, fluorescent light; the stark, off-white walls stained with blood and gore and other mutant fluids that Dean doesn’t ever want to think about. He swallows, and tries to keep his eyes fixed on Sam leading the way, cane tapping rhythmically on the floor as he walks ahead of Dean. 

He can’t stop from looking though, blurred movement in his peripheral vision making him jumpy, dragging his attention from the much more pleasing view of Sam’s ass to the contents of the cells. About half seem to be occupied, some of the mutants unconscious, some awake and moving despite the chains, their horrible gaping jaws locked in silent screams behind the steel muzzles. He sends up a quick prayer of thanks for the soundproof glass as he quickens his pace towards Robinson’s office at the end of the corridor. 

Sam drops back to walk alongside him. “You did insist on doing this with me,” he says. 

“Yeah, don’t hold me to that in future. Jesus, I don’t know how you can bear coming down here.” 

Sam shrugs. “It’s my job.” 

Dean glances at one of the occupied cells; the mutant inside is rocking, slamming its head against one of the walls of the cage, bloody, fleshy smears on the white paint. He jerks his gaze away and shudders. 

Robinson’s waiting for them at the end of the corridor, arms crossed over his blood-stained, navy boiler-suit, a sneer on his face as his eyes meet Dean’s. 

“Took you long enough, Winchester.” 

“Commander Winchester,” Dean corrects. 

Robinson sneers harder, but he keeps quiet. The guy’s a dick but he knows the chain of command. He steps forward, yanks the sheet off the specimen, giving it a cursory look. One of his guys, McAllen, wearing a matching boiler-suit and a matching sneer approaches, carrying the steel muzzle in his hands. 

“How many shots you give it?” Robinson snaps, directing the question at Sam and ignoring Dean. 

“Three. A couple outside, one in the lab,” Sam says, keeping his voice calm. 

“Three? Is that really necessary?” 

“That was my call,” Dean says. 

Robinson acts like Dean hasn’t spoken, just beckons McAllen over. Dean watches the two of them fasten on the muzzle, forcing it down over the creature’s head. McAllen tightens the bolts on the contraption so the metal jaws pierce the swollen growths around the neck and jaw. The bile’s rising up at the back of Dean’s throat, his stomach churning sickeningly as he watches pus and blood start to leak from the holes and cuts Robinson and McAllen are making in the creature’s skin. They don’t seem to notice, forcing the metal ball-gag into the mutant’s mouth and screwing the final bolt in place with something like ghoulish satisfaction. 

He flicks a glance at Sam. Sam’s watching the two guys work with a detached, dispassionate look on his face, and Dean remembers suddenly that Sam helped Robinson process the last mutant he brought in, that Sam would’ve been doing what McAllen’s doing right now. The thought makes him feel a little nauseous again, his eyes tracking to Sam’s hands, one wrapped around the head of his cane, the other resting on the metal bar at the end of the gurney. 

He puts his back to them, not wanting to watch anymore. He wanders over to stand in front of the bank of security screens that line one of the walls of the office. They cover every cell in use, replicated black and white fuzzy pictures of mutant after mutant. The lab and the cages have their own energy source separate from the rest of the base, giving them guaranteed, stable power. So while the rest of them suffer constant electrical shortages, even up in CIC, the power has never once gone out down here. It’s something Dean’s continually grateful for. 

“Winchester, you gonna help us with this?” Robinson snaps. 

He doesn’t bother to correct him this time. Robinson’s got a couple of lengths of chain wrapped up in his hands and he’s staring at Dean as if they’ve just engaged in a staring contest. McAllen’s standing off to one side, smirking. 

“Here, I’ll help,” Sam starts to say. 

“Nah,” sneers Robinson. “I know you can do it, man, just wanna see if your brother got the balls.” 

Dean rolls his eyes, snorts contemptuously in Robinson’s direction. Robinson just sneers harder and holds out one end of the chain. Dean leans over the gurney and grabs it. 

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asks. 

Robinson smirks, jerks his head down at the creature lying between them. “Attach it to the muzzle, padlock it in place. I’m gonna bind up the fucker’s hands.” 

Dean nods shortly. He’s not wearing gloves. He’s gotta brush his naked fingers up against that thing without any protection between them. That’s just – awesome. 

He looks down at the muzzle, sees the locking device Robinson must be talking about and gingerly slides one link in the chain around it, the padlock snapping into place like the clasp on a woman’s necklace. A long-ago image of Lisa, standing with her back to him, her hands holding her hair up as he fastened a chain around her long, graceful neck bursts up in his mind and he blinks, a flutter of loss sudden and abrupt deep in his gut. He takes a step back; watches Robinson wind the other length of chain around the mutant’s claws and feet, chaining it up better than a caterpillar in a cocoon. 

Once it’s chained up, Robinson goes to sit down at the control panel. 

“Are we done here?” Dean demands. 

Robinson ignores him of course, the ignorant fucker, just makes a show of consulting something on his screen. Finally, he looks up and barks an order at McAllen: “Put it in Three.” 

“Yes, boss,” says McAllen. He pushes past Dean and grabs one end of the gurney, wheeling it out of the office and back out into the corridor. 

They hear the electronic beep and swish of one of the cells opening then the same noise as it closes again. McAllen rolls the empty gurney back into the office, an expression of ghoulish satisfaction on his face. 

“It’s done,” he announces. 

Robinson nods, raises his gaze to Sam, then Dean, the corner of his mouth lifting up into another of those sneers. 

“You can go now, _Commander_ Winchester,” he says, not bothering to hide the contempt in his voice. 

Dean smirks back at him. “Right. Well, it’s been swell, boys, so glad I came.” 

Robinson’s eyes narrow and he sneers once more at Dean before he turns his attention to Sam. “You want all the usual tests, Sam?” 

Dean grits his teeth at Robinson’s casual use of his brother’s name, but Sam just answers, “Yeah, soon as you can.” 

At least they seem to be done. Sam calls out a goodbye as they leave and Robinson and McAllen just grunt in response, not bothering with actual words or coherent sentences, the ignorant dicks. 

“Jesus, how the fuck do you work with them?” Dean hisses as they make their way back down the mutant-lined corridor. 

“It pays to keep them on my side,” Sam says with a shrug. “Unlike you, I’m pretty good at faking it when I can’t stand someone.” He smirks and Dean makes a face at him. “And well, you know, man, they could make my job really difficult if they– Holy shit!” He stops abruptly and grabs onto Dean’s arm, breathing out: “Dean, Dean, look, look there!” 

Dean turns his head to where his brother’s staring: it’s one of the mutant-filled cells. The mutant inside is awake, thrashing and gnashing at the chains holding it down, wriggling and writhing its chain-cocooned body. 

“Dean – don’t you see?” 

“What? See what?” 

“It’s cell Three! The one – the one we just processed. It’s awake! We gave it three freakin’ shots and it’s already awake. Christ, Dean, this is – this is not good. I’ve never known them to recover so quick.” 

He unleashes his hold on Dean, takes a tentative step forward, fingers white knuckled around his cane. He stands in front of the cage, staring at the creature inside. “Fuck, McAllen got it caged just in time.” 

Dean feels the bottom fall out of his stomach, sudden image of what could’ve happened, of the fucker coming awake just a couple of minutes earlier – on that gurney – Sam _right there_ – exposed – himself with his gun holstered. Jesus, how could he have been so stupid? Trying to act nonchalant in front of those two douchebags when he should’ve had his damn weapon out the entire time, should’ve gone with his instincts. 

Christ, they were lucky. They got lucky. ‘Cause it’s awake. It’s really damn awake, thrashing and struggling and screaming, ramming itself against the blood-stained walls. 

“Sam, Sam, c’mon, come away. Let’s go, man, c’mon.” 

Sam doesn’t move, still staring into the cell. 

“Sam, c’mon!” Dean repeats, voice getting louder, more insistent. “Sammy!” 

Finally, Sam turns and lets Dean drag him away.


	5. Chapter 5

“I think there’s a nest,” Sam says a couple of weeks later. 

“Huh? A nest, what?” Dean mumbles. He pokes his head out of the bathroom, toothbrush in one hand, foam painting his lips. 

Sam’s in bed, bare-chested, papers strewn across his lap. He’s frowning, staring down at something on one of his sheets of paper. 

“The mutants,” he continues, not raising his head. “I think that’s how they’re reproducing. There’s got to be some sort of nest, some safe place where it’s all happening. Where they’re being born – produced – whatever.” 

The words wash over Dean as he watches his brother. Sam’s not paying attention to him, completely absorbed in his pages, so Dean can look his full. Sam’s probably naked under there, he thinks, eyes lingering over the distinct muscles of his brother’s chest, his firm shoulders and flat belly. Sam looks good, like, _really_ good. There’s less meat on him than there used to be, (not to mention one less leg), and like Dean, he’s less brawny, much leaner, but he’s still toned, still got all that upper body strength, probably even more than before, now that he has to rely on it more. 

He looks like he used to do in his early twenties, that year after Stanford, that time when they were starting to get to know each other all over again – get to know each other’s bodies once more. He watches Sam frown, a crease between his eyebrows and around his eyes, that set to his mouth deepening the lines that have set in prematurely. Like him, Sam’s face has aged, his hair threaded with grey. He’s going to be thirty-five in a couple of months, Dean reminds himself. Sammy’s going to be thirty-five; it’s fucking crazy. 

“Dean?” Sam prompts, finally looking up, raising an eyebrow at him. 

Dean blinks, trying to remember what Sam was talking about before Dean got sidetracked by staring at his naked body, and oh yes, something about the mutants building nests – and wait a goddamn second… _What the fuck?_

“Dean? Are you even listening to me?” 

“What? Yeah, yeah, dude, yeah, course I am. They’re building nests. Or something.” 

Sam frowns. “Yeah, or something.” 

“So, are we talkin’ like Godzilla? Well, the crappy Hollywood remake?” 

“What?” 

“You know, that crappy Godzilla movie with the Ferris Bueller dude? The monster was laying eggs in the New York sewer. They nuked the shit out of them. I think.” He breaks off and shrugs. “I don’t remember. It wasn’t very memorable.” 

“Maybe, I guess. I dunno, Dean. The monster was reproducing asexually in that movie, wasn’t it?” 

“I guess. It was laying eggs in the sewer, like on its own, so whatever you wanna call that,” Dean says. He turns to go back into the bathroom to wipe off his mouth. He pops the toothbrush back into the holder, snaps off the light and closes the door behind him. “So – does this mean that we gotta go and find some old freakin’ sewers and look for mutant eggs?” 

Sam rolls his eyes. “Don’t be so literal.” 

Dean smirks at him and pushes down his shorts. They catch around one ankle and he raises his leg, flicks his foot to toss them away into a corner of the room. 

“Thought you liked it when I was all literal,” he says, smirk still in place. 

“Seriously? You’re going with that?” Sam cocks up one eyebrow. “Worst freakin’ come-on ever. Even for you.” 

Dean chuckles and drops down onto the bed, mattress groaning and bouncing a little under his weight. He pushes down the covers and Sam lets out a huffy sigh, making a big show of gathering up his loose papers while Dean makes himself comfortable. 

“You wanna make out for a while?” he says when Sam’s finally finished stacking his pages up on the nightstand, placing a glass on top of them to keep them in place. 

Sam turns to look at him. “Did you not hear anything I said?” 

“Yeah, sure I did. Mutants – nest – eggs – sewers. Blah, blah, blah.” 

“Well, don’t you think it’s important? This could be crucial, Dean. If we can figure out how these things are reproducing then we have a great chance of stopping them.” 

Dean frowns, thinking about it for a moment. “Maybe. But seriously, Sammy. Eggs? You think they’re laying eggs? How the fuck are they doing that? Is there, like, some big queen bee? Another Mother of All?” 

“Honestly, I have zero freakin’ clue. The idea of them hatching out – of eggs –“ he shakes his head. “Man, it makes no goddamn sense.” 

“Ya think!” Dean snorts. “Though, dude, you were the one talking about them being more reptilian last time I was in the lab.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I was,” Sam says thoughtfully. “You know, we’re getting more and more of them in every day. I’ve never seen the cages so full. We only got two empty ones right now. It’s never been like this before, Dean. Robinson’s got his guys doing overtime every damn day. And it’s this new breed that we’re getting – the ones with the pure monster DNA. It’s like the older ones have just been overtaken – or assimilated.” He breaks off, shaking his head. “Something is definitely going on out there.” 

Dean swallows, that prickle of unease at the back of his neck, that sick feeling in his gut. Sam’s right; something _is_ going on out there. The last couple of weeks they’ve been killing between 50 and 100 of the motherfuckers per day. They ganked 103 on Tuesday. A compound record. 

“You’ve noticed it too, right?” Sam says. 

“Yeah,” he says. “They’ve increased. By a lot.” 

“Right,” Sam sighs. “You know, if we can figure this out, man. If we can find the nest then we can obliterate them. We can really make a difference.” 

“You need to tell Sanders about this,” Dean says. 

“D’you think so? D’you think he’d listen?” 

“I think he has to.” 

Sam gulps and nods a couple of times. “Right, yeah, right.” 

Dean drops his hand to the shape of his brother’s thigh, outlined under the sheet. He curls his fingers around the hard muscle, squeezes gently. “So, you wanna fool around for a while?” 

Sam laughs, abrupt and sudden. He turns his face towards him, eyes lit-up in genuine amusement. 

Dean smiles wider, one eyebrow arcing up. “That a yes?” 

“Aw, man, you’re just – unbelievable. Nothing stops your libido, does it, Dean?” 

He shakes his head, grins at his brother. “Nope. Not so far.” 

Sam grins back at him and puts his hand to the back of Dean’s neck, fingers brushing against the chain of his dogtags. He leans in, presses a kiss to the side of Dean’s temple. “Don’t ever change.” 

 

**

 

His team is waiting for him in the locker room, faces locked into intense and wary expectation, the look he privately calls their “training look”. They know he’s gonna ride them hard then put ‘em away wet, and hell, he doesn’t intend to disappoint. He takes pride in what his guys can do, and he knows they do too. They do seven miles, full gear, half the perimeter, the last two at a sprint. He leads from the front, lungs burning and breath coming hard through his ice-cold throat. They finish up with target practice and even there he doesn’t let them off easily. For every missed shot, he makes them do crunches or press-ups or star jumps. It was one of Dad’s favorite punishments and he can feel the ghost of John Winchester breathing down his neck as he watches Navarro and Ancelotti complete their fifth set. 

After he’s dismissed his guys and they’ve trekked back to the locker rooms with expressions of exhausted relief on their faces, he pushes himself through another couple of miles. He needs the distraction. He’s been feeling antsy ever since his conversation with Sam last night. Fuck, before then, since that little trip down in the cages a few weeks back. A wriggle of fear and dread scuttling up and down his spine every time he thinks about all those mutants down there with Sam. And not just any sort of mutants: these new, harder-to-kill, more resilient motherfuckers, the ones that can take three shots of tranq and wake up minutes later, the ones that can only been killed with head-shots. Sam is down there for hours and hours every day amongst those things. If Robinson’s band of cocky, psychotic assholes get sloppy, if they fuck up then his brother is right there – first in the firing line. 

He heads back to the locker rooms, panting and exhausted. His entire body is throbbing, aching all over, and he’s feeling his age. No matter how fit he is or how great his stamina is these days, he’s not twenty-five anymore, and his body is telling him that with painful clarity. For once, he relishes the cold water spurting out the jets in the locker room showers. He fastens the towel around his waist and heads back to the locker-room to be greeted by the unwelcome sight of Sanders’ number one bitchboy, Weiner, leaning up against the side of his locker, arms folded and smirking, and waiting for him. 

“What d’you want, Weiner?” he snaps, so not in the mood to deal with Weiner’s particular brand of douchebaggery. 

Weiner smirks harder. “You fucked up, Red Leader. You and your," he pauses, sneers, “ _brother_ fucked up. The Colonel wants to see you. Now.” 

Dean’s heart misses a beat; jaw tensing as he scans Weiner’s perfectly symmetrical face. There’s the usual loathing there, but there’s also something else, something that looks like contempt and disgust. Shit, there are probably a million reasons Weiner could be looking at him like that, but there’s really only one that springs immediately to mind, one that would make Weiner look so damn disgusted, contemptuous and gleeful, all at the same time. 

He doesn’t let any of this show of course, just says, “Right. So, you gonna get out my way? Or you enjoying the view too much?” He smirks and bats his eyelashes, skimming one hand down his naked, glossy chest and smiling coyly. 

Weiner flushes, a muscle at his jaw jumping and his eyes darkening as he spins around, spitting out, “Don’t keep the Colonel waiting!” over his shoulder. 

Dean gives his back the finger then turns back to his locker, fumbling for his clothes. 

Sanders is reading something at his desk, chair tilted back, eyebrows drawn together as his lips soundlessly shape the words. He looks up as Dean knocks on the open door, frowns and waves at Dean to close the door behind him. 

Dean does so, his heart sinking further as he turns his back on Sanders to push the door shut. Sanders never closes this door. He has this thing about always leaving it open, always being available. It’s total bullshit of course. Sanders, like most guys in positions of power, only lets himself be available when he wants to be. 

He turns around reluctantly, watches Sanders place his report down onto his desk. 

“Take a seat, Commander,” he says. 

Dean swallows, keeps silent as he slides into the seat on the other side of the desk, the one he’s sat in so many times before for so many briefings. It’s like being back in the principal’s office. Except it’s worse than that, ‘cause he never used to give a shit about school, about what the principal or the administration or whoever thought of him. This is different – this is like those times when Dad used to look at him with that dark, disappointed gaze right before he punished him.

He keeps quiet, waits for Sanders to come out with it, and he just knows, he _knows_. 

“You are aware that the majority of this entire base is kept under constant surveillance?” Sanders starts. 

“Yeah, I knew that,” he says. 

Sanders nods, presses his lips together before he continues, “That means that on the military side of this compound, except private quarters, we have cameras covering almost everywhere. Including the lab.” 

Shit… he feels his throat dry up, the power of speech fade away. Shit – the lab – him and Sam... 

How could they have been so damn stupid? What the fuck were they thinking? 

Well, they weren’t thinking – at least not with their upstairs brains – too caught up in a momentary daze of lust and desire. 

“Lieutenant Weiner brought something to my attention this morning,” Sanders says. “Footage of you and your brother in the lab a few weeks ago.” He pauses, looks directly at Dean. “I can see that you know what I’m talking about.” 

Weiner… that sonofabitch must’ve loved that. Him and Sam caught in the act, right on screen. Weiner must’ve been creaming his pants to have seen that, to have all that to hold over him. How long had the prick been sitting on that? 

He blinks, swallows hard, tongue slicking across his dry lips. “Sir, I can explain." 

The expression on Sanders’ face doesn’t change, still that same poker face. 

“I’m listening,” he says. 

Dean swallows again, nods. “I know what you saw, but you gotta understand some things. Me and Sam – we’re not – what we are to each other.” Sanders’ expression still doesn’t change, and Dean huffs out a breath, licks his lips. “What I mean is that Sam – he - he’s all I got. He’s all I ever had. Sir, it’s not – it’s not _like_ that.” 

Finally Sanders’ expression alters, he raises an eyebrow, leans back in his seat. “From what I saw, Red Leader, it was very much like that.” 

Dean blushes hard, raises his hand to the back of his neck. The collar of his standard issue fatigues feels suddenly tight and he runs a finger around it, under his dog tags, feeling them slip against his sweaty chest. 

“Yeah, well, yeah, it is, it is like that.” He pauses for breath, wishing that Sam were here too. Sam would have the right words to explain, to say that yes, yes, they are like that, and they know that what they do is wrong, but it’s also – it’s _them_. It’s who they are, it’s what they are, it’s just… It’s the only thing they’ve ever really had. 

“Sir, you remember I told you about – about what me and Sam used to do before? About hunting and monsters and the family business?” He breaks off and Sanders gives a curt nod. Dean clears his throat, finding his voice at last. “Our Dad raised us to that life, to be hunters like him. When we were kids, he would go away on hunts and he’d leave us for weeks and weeks on our own, and that was okay ‘cause that’s how it was, that was our life and we never knew anything else. We never stuck around anywhere, always onto the next hunt and the next school. And we’ve never been able to – to have friends or partners or families of our own. It was too dangerous, we just ended up getting them killed or putting them in danger." His voice hitches, memories of Ben and Lisa eating scrambled eggs, Jess standing next to Sam with his arm slung around her shoulders, Jo and Ellen curled up on the floor of that hardware store, Pamela… so many people over the years, all gone ‘cause of him and Sam. He swallows hard, forcing his voice out again, stronger, more certain. “So, it’s always just been Sam and me. He’s the only person I’ve ever been able to rely on. He’s all I got, Sir. He’s all I’ve ever had.” 

Sanders reaches forwards, fiddles with a couple of pieces of paper lying in front of him. He looks up, sighs again. “And so, naturally, you ended up turning to each other. You became sexually involved with each other. Is that what you’re trying to say?” 

“I’m not making excuses. I’m just telling you the truth. I know that Sam and me – that what we are to each other – what we do together is not normal. I know that, I do. But, honestly, I don’t care. Not now, not after everything that’s happened to us, not after. Well, everything that’s happened here. It’s been years since I cared what other people thought about me and Sam. I’m only trying to explain this to you ‘cause I respect you, ‘cause I don’t want you to think bad of me, Sir. He ain’t just my brother, he’s my family, he’s - he’s everything. And I get it if you want me to resign or you want to demote me or discipline me or banish me or whatever, but I’m not giving up Sam. I’d leave this place before I have to give up Sam.” 

“Dean – Dean – Dean,” Sanders interrupts, raising his hands in a placating gesture. Dean lets his mouth fall closed, swallows over his dry throat. First name terms – never good. “I’m not going to discipline you. Fact is, I don’t much care what my officers do in their private lives as long as they do their jobs when they’re out there. You’re a good soldier, you’re my best commander. I’m not going to demote you for Heaven’s sake. You’re too valuable for that.” 

“Then with respect, Sir, what exactly is this about? Why’d you call me in here?”

Sanders sighs, then leans forward onto the desk, steepling his hands under his chin. “Discretion, Commander.” 

“Discretion? I can be discrete.” 

“Not discrete enough. Or did you forget about the security cameras?” 

Dean smiles wryly. “Something like that.” 

“Well, in future, don’t forget. I don’t care about your proclivities. I don’t care what brought you and your brother to do what you do together. But there are many on this base who would care if they knew and who could put pressure on me to take action," he waves a hand, “I think you know what I mean.” 

Mrs. Fitzgerald. Of course it would be Mrs. Fitzgerald. The guardian of their future. Mrs. Fertility Program herself. 

“Right,” he nods, sets his teeth. “Yes, well, in future, we’ll be more discreet.” 

“Good. That’s all I’m asking.” 

“So, uh, what about Weiner? He knows, Sir, and he doesn’t – care for me.” 

Sanders thins his lips and nods. “Lieutenant Weiner will keep quiet. But, Dean, you and your brother need to make sure you don’t give anybody else any reason to suspect anything. In fact, you should think about making an outward appearance of being interested in someone else. Ask some young lady to the upcoming dance, perhaps? It will certainly go some way towards mitigating any rumors that are already circulating about your relationship with your brother.” 

_Your brother…_ it’s like he can’t say Sam’s name out loud. Dean tamps back on the urge to protest, to tell Sanders precisely what he thinks about his suggestion. Seriously, what is with all these goddamn people wanting to pimp him out to some unlucky unsuspecting female? First Sam and now Sanders. 

Well, fuck that. He’s not playing anyone’s game. Can’t they just let him carry on fucking his brother in peace? After all, who exactly are they harming here? They’re both consenting adults. 

Okay, so he’s not completely naïve. He knows what sort of shit-storm this could kick up if it did get out. He knows that it would make his own position as a squad commander untenable. His guys respect him, they follow him into battle without thinking, but would they still do that if they knew he was banging his brother on a regular basis? He should be grateful to Sanders right now. The guy’s got his reasons; he’s a savvy operator, just like Dad used to be. He doesn’t do anything for free; he only does what benefits the compound directly. But bottom line is, he’s gonna keep their secret. They owe him. 

“Right, well, I’ll take that under advisement, Sir.” 

Sanders nods at him, his lip quirking a little as if he knows what Dean was just thinking. He picks up the report once more then flicks out his hand. 

“You may go, Red Leader.”

Dean salutes and leaves the office. 

Weiner’s not at his desk when Dean comes out. He sends a death-glare in the direction of the asshole’s workstation and stalks back to the locker room. 

It’s empty. It’s too late for any of the guys to be on practice maneuvers, and the two squads on missions on the other side of the wall are not due to report back for another four hours. He doesn’t realize he’s trembling until his fingers fumble with his locker combination. He leans forward, presses his forehead against the cold metal. His heart is beating fast; his skin feels clammy. 

His boss knows about him and Sam. 

“You make me sick, Winchester.” 

He spins around at the sound of Weiner’s voice. The sonofabitch is standing in the entrance to the locker room, staring contemptuously at him. 

“Walking around here like you’re so fucking high and mighty. And all the time – you been dicking it to your brother – your own brother! But I knew! I knew what a sick freak you were – you and your perverted, mutant-loving brother–“ 

Weiner doesn’t complete that sentence. Dean is on him, slamming him back against the lockers, left hand fisted in his shirt, right hand curled into a fist. 

Weiner’s eyes go wide, dart from Dean’s raised fist to his face and back again. “You wouldn’t dare,” he stammers. “Sanders won’t defend you anymore.” 

Dean smirks and lowers his hand. “That’s what you think.” Weiner blinks, and Dean’s smirk gets wider, nastier. “I’m not going anywhere, you officious, little prick. I’m staying right here. I’m still Red Leader and I’m still your superior. You got that?” 

Weiner says nothing, eyes narrowing with pure hate as they bore back into him. 

“You sick freak!” he spits. 

“You can call me all the names you want, but if you say one thing about my brother. If you even breathe his name-" he pauses, forces his breathing back under control. He bares his teeth, eyes cold and lethal, voice calm and utterly deadly: “I can do things, Weiner. I know how the human body works. I know how to take apart a human body piece by piece. I know where to put my knife. I know where to slice and cut so it hurts the most. I know how to spill just enough blood so I keep someone alive long enough for them to beg me to kill them.” 

He lets the words hang in the air for a long endless moment then he pulls back, pats Weiner’s chest. “You understand what I’m sayin’, chuckles?” 

“You wouldn’t do anything!” Weiner blusters. 

“Do you really think that? You’ve seen me in training. You know my record. I’ve killed more mutants than Green and Blue Teams put together. You know what I’m capable of. If you even think about messing with Sam." He breaks off, smiles at him, cold and fatal. “I will enjoy making you scream. And not in a good way.” 

“You’re a fucking psycho, Winchester!” 

“Yeah, and don’t forget it.” He smiles sweetly and leaves the room. 

 

**

 

He goes to Rick’s. He can’t think about going back to his and Sam’s room, about seeing his brother just yet, about what he’s going to say to him. Sam decided years ago that they wouldn’t keep secrets anymore, and he’d agreed. They’d been through so much shit just because they’d spent so many years not telling each other things. And not just them. All that crap Dad had hidden from them for so long, so many fucking secrets over the years, and where had it gotten them? All three of them had been to Hell and back, and he and Sam had died – Jesus – he had no freaking idea how many times between them. 

So, they have rules now. They tell each other stuff. 

Admittedly, there’s not all that much to tell each other these days. But that’s not the point, at least not on Sam’s side. In fact, it’s endearing the way Sam will give Dean a run-down on his day if he’s feeling talkative, tell him what new breakthrough he’s had that day, what tests they’ve run and what hypothesis they’ve been working on. Most of it makes very little sense, but it’s kinda hot listening to Sam spurt out all this geeky scientific jargon and it makes Sam happy to show off to him. So, Dean listens and nods and makes stupid jokes, and Sam rolls his eyes and laughs at him, and everything is good and easy between them. 

“Hey, you alright, boss?” 

It’s Jackson. He gives her a half-hearted smile. “Meh, you know how it is.” 

She makes a face. “I know that drinking alone ain’t the answer. You should come over. Navarro’s gonna sing.” 

“Yeah? What’s he thinking of?” 

She snickers, tucks a lock of dark hair behind her ear, says, “He’s trying to decide between _Unchained Melody_ and _Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now_.” 

“Jefferson Starship versus the Righteous Brothers? Christ, what kinda choice is that?” 

“That’s what I been sayin’. You gotta tell him, boss. Seriously, he’s about to Ghost it. Come over and tell him straight.” 

He hesitates for a second, the no already on his lips, then he shrugs, says, “Yeah, alright.” 

He follows Jackson back over to the table, letting his eyes wander over her ass in the tight combat pants. It’s automatic, instinctive, and hey, she’s got a nice ass, he’s always got time to appreciate a chick with a nice ass. Not that he’s gonna do anything about it. This is Jackson, she might be hot but she’s also one of his guys, one of the team and he’s her boss; that kinda shit is important. 

And besides, he’s got Sam. Sam’s a sure thing and a great lay and – well – he’s Sam. What else could he want? 

The guys cheer him ironically, loud, drunken bursts of sound and table-drum solos. He cuffs a couple of them across the back of the head, curses loudly, and falls into a seat between Jackson and Gutierrez. 

An hour later and he’s feeling even more fuzzy-headed and bleary-eyed. Rick’s too busy to serve him the good stuff, so he’s stuck with the same rot-gut as everybody else, and he’s more than a little drunk, drunk enough to be flicking through the songbook and thinking about getting up there to show them how it’s done. Not that he needs to consult the songbook, he’s memorized every damn 80’s power track in it. 

Chang from Silver Team finishes up _Romeo and Juliet_ with a big flourish, and Rick bounds onto the stage to pick up the mike. 

“So, who’s up next?” he calls to the increasingly rowdy audience. 

All the guys at his table start stamping their feet and wolf-whistling and waving their hands at him. Rick immediately laser-beams into him, grinning evilly into the mike as he announces, “And it’s the illustrious Red Leader. Commander Dean Winchester come on down!” 

Dean rolls his eyes, but he gets to his feet, only swaying a little as he makes his way through the cat-calls and wolf-whistles to the stage. 

Rick greets him with a couple of back-slaps, passing him the mike and murmuring: “Will it be the usual, Mr. Torrance?” 

It’s at times like these that Rick really reminds him of the freaking Trickster, or Gabriel, or whatever that sonofabitch was called. Rick’s got the same self-satisfied, smirking expression, the same dorky, slicked-back hair, the same love of tormenting Dean just for his own pleasure; though on the flipside, he’s the only guy on the base still with real booze, so, yeah, best to keep him on side.

“Yeah, go on then,” Dean answers with a sigh, giving Rick a flash of his best Crazy Jack eyes as he takes the mike. 

Rick snickers and jostles him playfully, jumping off the stage to set up the machine. Dean scans the audience, gaze stuttering to a halt when he spots Sam, perched on a stool at the bar with Suzie next to him. Sam grins as their eyes meet and Dean ducks his head and smiles to himself, waiting for the intro music to finish before he starts to sing. 

His eyes flick back to Sam as he sings and he wonders if other people can see this: if they can see how he can’t stop himself from looking at his brother, from gauging his reaction. He gets to the rousing chorus and just goes for it, singing with cheery gusto: _“…Sing with me, sing for the year; sing for the laughter, sing for the tear; Sing with me, if it’s just for today; Maybe tomorrow, the good lord will take you away…”_

Sam’s grinning outright, taking long sips of his rotgut and bopping his head in time to the music. He angles his head down to exchange some words with Suzie who’s also laughing at something, her hand curled around Sam’s forearm and lips close to Sam’s sideburn. 

Dean finishes up to thunderous applause – naturally. He raises his hands above his head to accept the applause, and jumps off the stage. He goes back to the Red Team table to get slapped on the back and cheered on some more. But he’s not interested in sticking around now, not when he’s seen Sam. He drains the rest of his drink, makes his excuses and pushes his way through the crowds towards his brother. 

Sam’s waiting for him, smiling as Dean approaches. Dean slides up next to him, using the excuse of the crowded bar to get up close. 

“You were great,” says Suzie. 

She’s red-faced and grinning. She looks cute, that earnest, geeky sincerity burning off her, and he has a sudden flash of wondering what she’d be like in bed. She’d probably be a tiger, eager and hungry and hot as hell; those geeky types always are. Hell, look at Sammy. 

“Ah, Suze, don’t encourage him!” Sam groans. 

She giggles and shakes her head, taking another long sip on her drink and eying the two through damp, half lowered lashes. 

“Don’t listen to him, sweetheart, he’s just jealous,” Dean says, using one of his most flirtatious tones and leaning closer to Suzie. “He wishes he could sing as well as me. But sadly, when he sings, grown men weep.” 

“Shut up!” Sam snorts. 

“What? What?” he demands, fake insulted. “Dude, c’mon, it’s true. Remember that time in that place in Arkansas? You got wasted and insisted on doing that freakin’ Heart song? _Heart_ , like, seriously?” He turns to Suzie again and lowers his voice: “They kicked us out. Begged us not to come back.” 

Sam rolls his eyes. “Whatever, that wasn’t ‘cause of me. That was you, hitting on the wrong girl.” 

“She told me she was single!” he protests. “And anyway, it was her coming onto me, not the other way around.” He turns to Suzie in appeal: “Can I help it that all the ladies love me?” 

Suzie giggles again, blushing red, while Sam just snorts and slides off his stool. “Yeah, alright, Casanova. Let’s go. You’ve had way too much already.” 

Dean’s caught between wanting to protest – because whatever, Sammy, he can so handle his drink – and between the desire to get the fuck out of there and back to their private quarters. 

Sam doesn’t say much as they walk back to their room, and Dean keeps quiet, remembering with a sinking sensation in his gut that he’s got things to tell Sam, that there’s a reason he got so wasted tonight, and it wasn’t just for kicks and karaoke. 

Back in the room, he collapses onto the bed still fully dressed. He hears Sam sigh, and the mattress tilts as Sam perches on the end, and then Sam’s hand is on him, stroking up and over his ass, the touch turning into something more lingering, more deliberate. 

He rolls onto his back, opens his eyes. “You wanna do it?” 

Sam arcs up an eyebrow, mouths; “Do it?” looking amused. 

Dean attempts to roll his eyes and bats his brother’s hand away. “Forget it.” 

“Dean, c’mon, don’t pout about it.” 

“I’m not pouting!” 

Sam chuckles, evilly, “Whatever.” 

The mattress tilts again, and he hears the familiar clinking and rustling sounds of Sam unfastening the prosthesis. He winces when it’s done, and Dean frowns to himself, speaks into the pillow, “You been wearing it too long again, Sammy.” 

Sam sighs, “Yes, Dean, I know that.” 

“So why’d you keep doing it?” 

Sam says nothing for what feels like a long while, and Dean can almost hear the sound of him grinding his teeth before he finally says, “I’m not having this fight with you when you’re drunk and I’m tired. I just wanna go to bed.” 

“Fine,” Dean mutters. 

Sam sighs deeply and the mattress tilts and jogs again as he starts to get undressed. Dean closes his eyes and lets himself drift off. The room is spinning, a rhythmical turn-turn-turn sloshing around in his poor head and stomach. He groans and forces his eyes back open, tries to focus in on the blurred, looming shape of his brother leaning over him, eyeing him with an expression that hovers somewhere between exasperation and affection. 

“Sammy,” he sighs, sounding pitiful in his own ears. 

“C’mon, gotta get out of these clothes, dude.” 

Dean groans again but goes limp and accommodating as Sam starts to pull off his boots and pants and over-shirt. When Sam’s done, Dean crawls under the covers and sprawls out like a starfish, hearing Sam tut and complain as he gets in the other side. Eventually Sam just gives up, wraps his enormous trunk-arms around him and pulls him in, molding their bodies together. Normally he would protest, he likes his own space when he sleeps, but he’s too tired and too drunk and there’s still that niggling guilt and worry at the back of his mind from the conversation with Sanders, and being this close to Sam is really distracting. 

He feels Sam nestle down, push his mouth against the nape of his neck, and kiss him. 

“Go to sleep, Dean,” he murmurs. 

Dean smiles to himself and closes his eyes. He’ll worry about everything else in the morning. 

 

**

 

He dreams that night. Confusing, alcohol-inspired dreams of forests and running and something chasing him: mutants, hellhounds, something else… 

The scenery flashes past him and suddenly he’s in the car, in _his_ car, his baby, and she smells the same, sweat and leather and fast food and dirt and spunk. He glances to his right and the passenger seat is empty, Sam’s not there. 

“You miss your brother,” a voice says. 

He looks again and the seat is taken by Castiel. The angel riding shotgun, looking as calm and serene as he always did. 

Dean licks his lips, remembers suddenly why Sam’s not there. They split up. Sam went his own way while he and Cas teamed up and went after Raphael. This is a memory, this really happened. He and Cas captured Raphael in the burning ring of fire and half the Eastern seaboard lost power for twelve hours. 

_And it burns, burns, burns; that ring of fire, that ring of fire…_

In the dream he laughs and says to Castiel, “You ever meet Johnny Cash up there?” 

Cas stares impassively at him. “You think I left you, Dean. I didn’t leave. I never stopped watching you.” The angel reaches out and places his hand on the steering wheel. The car shudders to a halt. “There’s something I need to tell you, Dean.” 

Dean blinks and his baby is gone, Castiel is gone. Dean’s sitting over Sam’s hospital bed, and Sam’s leg is gone too. Dr. Gerard removed it. He cut it off and threw it in the trash and Sammy will never be complete again. 

He lurches awake with a gasp, chest heaving and heart thumping. He breathes in and out for a couple of beats and takes in his surroundings: his and Sam’s quarters at the base, their bed, their shit all around him, a dent in the pillow beside him the shape of his brother’s enormous head. Home. 

And – oh God – a Black Sabbath baseline drumming against his poor soggy skull. Shit, he’s hung-over. 

He groans and squints at the clock. 7am, and he has to lead newbie training at 0800 hours. Shit. He is so not in the right shape for training anybody today. He sighs pitifully, and with a massive effort, heaves himself out of bed. 

He pads to the bathroom, pushing open the door and blinking at the onslaught of fluorescent light. Sam’s standing at the sink, one crutch jammed under his left shoulder, shaver in his right hand, foam smeared across his face. He looks up as Dean walks in, meeting his eyes in the mirror above the sink. He smiles sympathetically, and Dean groans again, and slides into the space behind him, winding his arms around his brother’s chest and pressing his poor throbbing head into Sam’s warm comforting shoulders. 

“You smell good,” he mumbles into Sam’s skin. 

Sam chuckles, the noise vibrating against Dean’s lips and cheek. “And you smell awful. How much did you have last night?” 

“Too much.” 

Sam makes that tutting noise again. “Dude, you know we’ve got that meeting with Sanders this afternoon. Why’d you do it?” 

He groans pathetically. Jesus, that’s all he needs. He is so not up for Sanders at the moment. And with Sam there too, and with what Sanders knows about them - 

“Dean, what is it?” 

He hesitates, and thinks about trying to make something up, but his brain is still not functioning right, at least not right enough to come up with an adequate excuse. And well, there’s the whole deal where they’re supposed to be honest with each other. 

He pulls reluctantly away from Sam and leans against the side of the sink, putting his brother’s face in profile to him. He watches him finish shaving, rinsing his razor and patting his face dry with the towel. When Sam’s done, he turns to Dean and raises an eyebrow. “Okay, spill.” 

“Sanders knows,” he says. 

“Knows what?” 

“About us. About you and me. He saw us. On camera.” Sam’s eyes go wide, and Dean adds: “The other day when we were in the lab.” 

“Shit.” Sam sags forward, bracing his right hand on the sink. “Shit, Dean. We – I didn’t think. I should’ve remembered.” 

“Yeah, we both should’ve remembered,” Dean says flatly, “but we didn’t. So–“ he sighs and leans one hip up against the sink. He raises his hand to his face, drags it across his jaw, stubble scraping. Man, he feels like the worst kind of crap. 

“So, what does this mean? What’s he gonna do?” 

“He says he’s gonna keep it a secret.” 

Sam shakes his head, setting his mouth. “Dean, this meeting today?" 

“Still happening. Far as I know.” 

“Shit, man. He knows about us? He’s going to be looking at us and he’ll know and how the fuck am I supposed to get him to even listen to anything I gotta say when all he’s gonna be thinking about is my cock up your ass!” 

“Hey, hey, it’s not always that way around,” Dean protests, trying for some levity. 

Sam makes an exasperated sound. “This is important, Dean! He’s not gonna take anything I say seriously now!” 

“Sam, Sam, c’mon, man. Look, he’s a reasonable guy. He’s all about doing the practical, pragmatic thing. He said I could keep my job. He said he’s gonna keep it a secret so no one starts clamoring for my head on a plate. He wants what’s best for the base which means I get to keep being a commander and you get to keep doing your geeky science thing. Listen to me, man, you know more about those sonsofbitches than anybody else on this base and he knows that! Trust me, he’s gonna listen to you. This doesn’t have to be a big deal, just pretend like I haven’t told you.” 

Sam blinks and sighs again, looking unconvinced. Dean raises his hand to cup one of his brother’s cheeks, forcing him to turn his head so their eyes meet. 

“Hey, Sammy, trust me, it’ll be okay.” 

Sam’s mouth twitches a fraction then he nods. Dean smiles in relief and drops his hand, ducking his head and leaning in to bump his forehead against Sam’s bicep. He breathes in and out, inhaling the warm, shower-fresh scent of his brother’s skin. Sam raises his hand to ruffle through Dean’s short hair, fingers absently patting and stroking before he pulls away and crutches himself out of the bathroom.


	6. Chapter 6

To Dean’s relief, Sanders acts like nothing has changed, like he hasn’t watched Sam stick his tongue down his big brother’s throat and grope his ass. Sam, like the good little actor he used to be, slides into it, behaving like Sanders is just another witness or victim of the week, putting on his most helpful and serious demeanor. 

“A nest?” Sanders repeats, leaning back in his chair. “How sure are you?” 

“Pretty sure,” says Sam. 

“Really pretty sure,” adds Dean, feeling Sam shoot him an irritated look. 

“Maybe nest is the wrong word, but we know they gotta have a base, a safe place where these new mutants are being born – or produced. What we gotta do is strike against this nest. Discover where it is and annihilate it,” Sam says. 

Dean represses the urge to shiver, there’s something so matter-of-fact about his brother’s tone, something chilling in the way he’s laying this out there. Not that he disagrees of course. He’s not some freaking bleeding heart, standing up for mutant rights; hell, he’s killed more of the fuckers than anyone on this base. They need to be destroyed, it’s a simple them against us situation. But still, the way Sam’s talking about taking out this nest. 

This is something else entirely. 

Sanders nods. “Yes, of course,” he says. “Do you have any idea what we’re looking for? Where this nest might be?” 

Sam shakes his head. “Honestly, Sir, I have no idea. But my best guess is that it’s close. That’s it’s in one of the wooded areas, maybe underground or in some sort of cave.” 

“Underground?” Dean queries. “Like under the earth, underground? 

Sam gives him an indulgent look. “Yes, Dean, like that. The new specimens have soil ingrained in their feet and claws and it’s," he frowns, "it’s different to what the older specimens have. I mean, sure, they’re all covered in dirt, they live in the outdoors, but this is – different. And then there’s the physical changes we’re seeing, the way they’re evolving right in front of us. It all points towards them leading a more subterranean existence.” 

Sanders nods again, his lips pursed in that way that means he’s taking in every word Sam’s saying. Dean slants a look at his brother, that warm, familiar pride in his chest, that almost awestruck sensation hooking at his insides. Sam’s so goddamn smart, so goddamn amazing. None of them have any freaking idea. 

He clears his throat and Sanders narrows his eyes in on him. “Commander?” 

“We should arrange search parties,” he says. “Have teams go out there to explore each area systematically. Look for any signs of a nest or some sort of habitat or any kind of disturbance underground. We should start right away.” 

“Yes, yes, I agree.” Sanders gets up from his desk, stalks towards the corner of the office to his ever-present coffee pan. He pours himself a cup, doesn’t bother asking them if they want a refill. He must be very distracted. He takes a long sip, leaning his ass back against the stove. “We’re gonna need to brief Gold and Silver Leaders immediately. Sam, you should be involved too. If that’s okay with you?” He turns his attention to Sam, raises his eyebrows. 

“Uh, yeah, yes, of course,” Sam answers quickly. 

“You can go now,” Sanders says, bowing his head to stare down into his coffee mug. He looks up again as they get to their feet, Sam curling his fingers around his cane and levering himself up from the chair. “And Sam, thanks for bringing this to me. This could be vital to the future of this base – indeed, to the future of all of us.” 

Dean sneaks a glance at his brother, Sam’s blushing a little, but he’s meeting Sanders’ eyes, accepting the compliment as his due. “Thanks, Sir, I’m just doing my job.” 

Sanders nods in return, holding Sam’s gaze for a second, before his eyes sweep over them both in that assessing, scrutinizing way of his. Dean cringes, the urge to run from the room tugging at him. He clamps it back, ducks his head as he holds the door open for Sam to walk through, sighing in relief when they’re both on the other side. 

They don’t speak for a couple of minutes as they make their way towards the lab then Sam says, “That guy remind you of Dad?” 

Dean freezes, an instinctive reaction to Dad’s name; it’s only momentary, automatic, and something he should’ve gotten over years ago, just like he’s gotten over Dad’s death years ago, but still. 

“Yeah,” he says, “sometimes.” 

Sam nods, huffs out a breath, a faint smile. “Me too.” 

 

**

 

Both Suzie and Ron are working when they get to the lab, the two of them hunched over an exam table holding a mutant cadaver, prodding and slicing into it with the sort of ghoulish satisfaction that reminds Dean disconcertingly of Robinson. At some point they must’ve removed the muzzle, it’s lying on the table holding their instruments, blood and pus-caked, stained brown. 

He swallows back the nausea churning in his gut, and follows Sam across the room to his desk. He watches Sam log into his computer, but he’s looking up again before he realizes it, gaze drawn irresistibly back to the dead mutant, to the way Suzie’s scalpel slices over the veiny protrusions in its chest. He doesn’t need to look, and he definitely doesn’t want to look, but he can’t help himself. It’s car-crash stuff. 

“So, you guys, uh, find anything interesting?” he says. 

Suzie looks up and blinks at him, raising the back of her latex-covered hand to push her bangs out of her eyes. “Possibly,” she says, “we’re just looking into its circulatory system. Did you know that they’re cold blooded?” 

“No,” he answers, “no, I did not know that.” 

“Oh yes; they’re truly fascinating creatures. Right now, we’re just watching the way the blood goes round–“ 

“-wait a minute – are you telling me that thing ain’t dead?” 

Suzie blinks at him again. “No, of course it’s not dead, Dean. Why would you think that?” 

He wets his lips, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, a niggle of something at the bottom of his spine: unease, dread, his spidey sense. “Just that the way you’re slicing and dicing there, dude. Don’t ya think–“ 

“It’s the best way to examine them,” Sam cuts in. “Relax, man. We know what we’re doing.” 

“We don’t kill them,” Ron adds. “It would be counterproductive to what we’re trying to achieve. We want to know how they function when they’re alive.” 

“Oh right, so in that case, how many shots you–“ 

The mutant rears up from the exam table, and seizes Ron, teeth sinking into the fleshy part of his arm with a bone-crunching snap. Ron howls, and Dean’s moving, hauling Suzie away and reaching for his weapon with his other hand. 

Except... 

There’s nothing there. He’s not carrying. 

He’s defenseless. They’re defenseless and there’s a live, _really fucking awake_ mutant right there: chowing down on one of Sam’s co-workers. 

_“Dean! Get down!”_

Sam’s yell has him hitting dirt, Suzie dragged down with him, and Sam’s firing – one – two – three – shots whistling over their heads and slamming into the mutant’s bloody torso. 

They don’t stop it. 

It howls, enraged, and jerks away from Ron, coming for Sam, coming right for Sam. 

_“Sammy! Head shot! Head shot! Go for the head!”_ he screams. 

He pushes Suzie to the floor, staring wildly around the room for something to grab onto, something to put between the mutant and his brother – a chair – a desk – some way of stopping it getting to Sam. But Sam’s got it, of course Sam has it. This is Sam, his strong, capable, hunter brother, Sam who keeps a weapon in his desk drawer, Sam who’s already firing again, aiming for the head. 

One – two bullets slamming into the scaly, empty eye sockets – three – another in its gaping maw – and finally – Jesus – _finally_ – it staggers and drops. 

The after-silence seems to last forever, but it must only be a few seconds; Dean’s ears ringing with the gun-shots and the creature’s howls. Distantly, he becomes aware of Suzie sobbing and shaking underneath him, and above that noise, more distinctive, his body attuned to it like nothing else: his brother’s voice. 

“Dean, Dean, you okay? Dean?” 

He raises his head, blinks, stares blankly at his brother. Sam’s eyes are wide, terrified, frantically running over him. He stumbles forward, looms over Dean.

Dean nods, catching his breath. “Yeah, yeah, we – uh. It didn’t get us. I’m okay, man.” 

Sam nods, relieved. He leans in and curls his fingers around Dean’s forearm, pulling him in closer. Dean lets him, fists his own hand in Sam’s sleeve, holding onto him, steadying himself. He reaches down with his other hand and helps Suzie to her feet. Slowly, reluctantly, all three of them turn and look down at the dead mutant. 

“Is it dead? Is it definitely dead?” Suzie whispers. 

Dean swallows, unlatches his fingers from their death grip on Sam’s sleeve and moves to lean over the dead and bloody body. He kicks it in the head with the toe of his boot. It doesn’t move. 

“Yeah, it’s dead.” 

“Head-shots,” Sam murmurs, “head-shots – you never said they–“ 

“Sam,” Dean cuts him off, directing a look at his brother, then turning his head towards the broken, crumpled figure of Ron. 

He’s slumped on the floor, cradling his arm against his chest, face stark and frozen, creased with pain, shoulders pressed into the wall like it’s the only thing holding him up. His arm is bleeding, rivulets of red rolling down it, dripping onto the floor, staining his pale blue scrubs. 

Dean looks at his brother; watches his face fall as the realization dawns. He hasn’t got much time for Sam’s co-workers. Sure, Suzie’s a sweet girl and she’s vaguely hot in a cute, geeky way, and she genuinely likes Sam which gets Dean’s seal of approval and shows good taste on her part, but Ron and the other guy, they’re kinda douchey, pretentious and patronizing, and way too used to taking advantage of Sam’s workaholic nature. But still – this – Christ – no one deserves to go out like this. 

He puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder, squeezes hard then reaches down to pry the Taurus out of his hand. 

“It’s okay, man. I got this,” he says. 

“Wait – what are you? You’re not gonna?” Suzie babbles. 

He looks at her then looks at the petrified, curled-up figure of Ron. “It’s the best way, Suzie, trust me.” 

She holds his gaze for a moment, her blue eyes wide and red-rimmed with tears, then she nods, giving in. 

He gives her a weak smile and walks across the room towards Ron. 

He stands over the guy, weapon dangling from one hand. Slowly, Ron tilts his head back, blinks up at him. He pulls his knees up to his chest, hugs his arms around them, uncaring now of the blood running freely down his arm, the small slick pool under him, soaked into his sneakers and scrubs. His face is drained of color, eyes burning and terrified, mouth disappeared in on itself. 

“Just – make it quick – one shot. Not sure I could deal with more than one shot.” He makes a strangled sound and swallows hard, squeezing his eyes tight shut and hugging his knees closer to his chest in some deformed version of the fetal position. 

“It’ll be quick,” Dean promises. He raises his hand. 

“Wait! No, Dean! Wait!” 

Sam’s voice stalls him. He whips his head around, stares at his brother. 

“No, don’t. We could – not this time. We could leave it.” 

“Leave it?” he repeats blankly. By his reckoning it’s been just over a minute since the mutant bit the poor sonofabitch cowering in front of him. He’s known change times to vary a lot, from twenty minutes to a full hour, and technically they have time, but the poor bastard’s got to die. He knows he’s got to die. He’s accepted it; delaying it any further would just be cruel. 

Sam wets his lips, flicks a look at Suzie, but she’s looking just as blank and confused as Dean. 

“It was one of the new mutants. We haven’t, I mean we don’t know the effects of getting bitten by one of the new mutants. We haven’t had chance to study it yet. These creatures aren’t infected humans, they’re different. They might not spread the infection. They might not have the ability to turn a human.” 

“Sam, we can’t take that kinda risk.” 

“I’m not asking us to. We put him in one of the cells. We lock him up,” Sam says. “Dean, listen to me. This is an opportunity. We’re not going to get this kind of opportunity, these kinds of conditions again. Out in the field, you can’t do this, but here in the lab…” 

Dean blows out a breath, lowers his right hand. “Sam, come on, man, this is a human being. This is your friend. You gotta do the right thing. The _humane_ thing.” 

Sam looks at him, mouth curling up into a defiant shape. He drags his eyes away from Dean and shuffles forward, that awkward limp gait of his.. 

“Ron,” he says. “You agree with me, don’t you? You realize that we gotta do this? We gotta find this out?” 

The guy on the floor raises his head, blinks at Sam, eyes tracking listlessly between the three of them. 

“I don’t care,” he whispers. “I’m screwed either way.” 

Sam hesitates, licks his lips, swings his head Suzie’s way. “Suze? You agree with me?” 

Numbly, she nods her head. “Yes. Yes. We gotta do it. And it – Ron – it might not happen. You might not turn!” 

“Right, I’m gonna be the lucky one.” Ron’s tone is bleak, but there’s no disguising the faint note of hope behind it, that vague, cruel wrinkle of _it won’t be me, I’ll be the lucky one, I’ll be okay._

Dean’s gut wrenches, and he swallows hard, trying to still the rising sensation of foreboding churning at his insides. “Sammy, I don’t like this.” 

“I know you don’t,” Sam says. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” 

Sam looks unsure for a fraction of a second, then his face locks down, mouth sets. “Yeah, I do.” 

Dean watches silently, finger grazing over the trigger of Sam’s Taurus as Suzie injects Ron with the tranq. He helps them move the heavy, unconscious body to the same gurney they use for transporting mutants. Sam goes to the intercom to speak with Robinson, and after a brief exchange, the doors to the cages slide open. 

“You need me to come down there with you?” Dean asks. It’s the first words he’s said since Sam and Suzie decided upon this insane plan, and his voice sounds abrupt and strange in his own ears. Suzie startles and turns to look at him with frightened eyes, while Sam just shakes his head, saying, “No, we got this. You go, Dean.” 

He doesn’t leave until he sees the doors to the cages slide closed behind them. 

 

**

 

He doesn’t see Sam again until much later. It’s after 2am by the time Sam gets back to their room, and Dean’s still awake, staring at the dark ceiling, trying to rationalize what just happened. 

It brings back unwanted memories of those months spent alongside that robotic, soul-free version of his brother. That non-Sam person wouldn’t have thought twice about using one of his friends in a science experiment. Soulless Sam let his own brother be turned into a vampire for the sake of a fucking hunt. This would be small change to soulless Sam. But his Sam – the Sammy he loves – he’d never expected this of his Sam. 

Hell, maybe he’s being naïve. Sam used to accuse him of assigning noble character traits to him that he doesn’t possess while putting himself down, of insisting on seeing Sam as the more human side of hunting when maybe it was a label he’d never really deserved. Over the years, he’ll admit that Sam’s halo has gotten less shiny, though the way he feels about him hasn’t changed, probably even intensified, considering everything that’s happened to them. He knows that Sam is a great hunter, just like Dad was, and just like Dad, Sam can be pragmatic, single-minded and even occasionally, ruthless. And, now, well, the world is different now. There’s no constitution, no human rights, no real personal freedom. Everything is done for the greater good, for the survival of the human race. Surely, poor, unlucky Ron is just a product of this new world. 

The door opens with a scratchy click and Dean sits up in bed, murmuring, “Sam?” 

The light goes on and Dean blinks as his eyes adjust. He watches his brother close the door behind him. Sam’s shoulders are slumped, back bowed, and Dean knows immediately that whatever Sam was hoping – whatever he was wishing for – it didn’t happen. 

Sam turns around and Dean takes one look at his face and any remnants of anger or resentment fade away. He holds out his hand, beckoning Sam closer. “Sam, c’mere.” 

Sam looks relieved as he hobbles across the floor, sinking to the edge of the bed with a wince. Dean pushes back the covers and scoots closer, pressing his bare chest up against his brother’s back and circling his arms around him. 

“You stupid idiot,” he says softly. “You’re hurting again, ain’t ya? Just when it was getting better. How many freakin’ times I gotta tell you ‘bout wearing that damn thing for so long?” 

Sam tilts his head back, pressing his forehead to Dean’s chin, breath puffing against Dean’s collarbone. “I love you,” he says. 

Dean flushes – which is a ludicrous reaction, but they don’t actually say this shit to each other very often, not in actual honest-to-God words, and it feels… good. 

“Yeah, well, that’s nice and all,” he says at last, “but you’re still an idiot.” 

Sam snickers, and kisses the underside of Dean’s chin, grazing his nose against the stubble. He sighs and pulls away. 

“Help me get this thing off? And before you start – I promise I won’t wear it tomorrow.” 

“Damn straight.” 

He helps Sam into bed and gets the lights. He hears Sam’s breathing start to lengthen, and he thinks his brother’s gone to sleep when Sam suddenly breaks the silence. “He turned, Dean. Just like the rest of them. He still turned.” 

“You knew it was a slim chance.” 

He can just about make out Sam’s face in the dark. Sam rolls onto his back, eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling, whites gleaming in the near-dark. 

“He’s still alive. I mean – well – not him, _it_. It’s still alive.” 

Dean blinks, shocked. “What? Why?” 

Sam turns his head Dean’s way, looks at him. “’Cause he – it’s still useful to us. It’s the first known specimen of a human turned by a new-breed mutant. We can," he trails off, “well, you know the drill.” 

Operate on it. Experiment on it. Dissect it. Use it for training. The same mutant that used to be one of Sam’s co-workers. Jesus, is this what they’ve come to?” 

“It’s not human anymore, Dean,” Sam interrupts as if he knows just what Dean’s thinking. “And what d’you think all those other mutants, the old ones down in the cages are? The ones you kill? They were all human beings at some point.” 

He sounds a shade defensive, insisting a little too much. But he’s pointing out the freaking obvious. Dean knows all this shit. He knows that most of the sonsofbitches he kills were once regular people, just like the monsters they used to kill back in the day – ghosts, demons, spirits, werewolves, vampires – all of them used to be human at one point. There’s never been any room for sentiment in hunting. 

“No, I know that, man. And I agree with you. You know I do. ” 

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says, sounding a little grudging. “And I did – I did think about just killing him but." 

“But you gotta think of the bigger picture,” Dean finishes for him. 

Sam sighs, “Yeah. The bigger picture. God.”

He sounds tired, more than tired, exhausted, the stupid idiot running himself ragged as usual. 

“Hey, c’mere,” Dean says. He shifts back, making room. He pats the empty spot on his pillow. “Put that enormous chrome magnum head of yours here.” 

Sam squirms closer, rests his head on the pillow beside Dean. 

“Night, Sammy,” he whispers. 

He feels Sam’s smile against the back of his neck, then his voice, low and intimate. “Night, Dean.” 

 

**

Sanders wastes no time getting Operation Search and Destroy up and running. 

He calls Dean and Sam into a private briefing with the Gold and Silver Leaders. Dean’s the last to arrive, throwing a dirty look Weiner’s way as he knocks on the closed door, fucking dick trying to sabotage him in the most passive-aggressive way ever. Weiner just narrows his eyes at him and goes back to pretending to work or whatever the fuck else he does all day. 

When he enters the room he sees Sam, Sanders, Ritchie (the Silver Leader), and Sagna (the Gold Leader), standing over the largest and most detailed map they possess, the one with each Sector marked off and labeled: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo and the grid squares within them. 

“Did I miss anything?” he asks. 

“No,” Sanders answers. “I was just telling Gold and Silver Leaders our new information.” 

“Dean, you hear this shit?” Ritchie says, eyebrows climbing up his forehead. “Those bitches are breeding! There’s a fucking nest out there. Un-fucking-believable.” He shakes his head. “Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse.” 

“Actually, this is a good thing,” Sam interrupts. 

“How? How exactly is this a good thing?” Ritchie demands, swinging his gaze to Sam. 

Sam shrugs. “If we find this nest and if we destroy it, then we’re gonna be a helluva lot better off than we are at the moment. You gotta remember, guys, that the human population on this planet is finite. Apart from people like us who have managed to establish bases across the country, and we’re not even sure how many more of them there are, the rest of humanity is either dead or was turned a long time ago. The old generation of mutants are living in a world with an ever-decreasing food chain, and with people like us out there mowing them down at every turn. If we wipe this nest out that extinguishes their ability to reproduce, at least in this part of the world. And it makes us not the only endangered species round here.” He hesitates, gives them all a bland smile. “In the short term of course, until they evolve again. ‘Cause they will evolve again.” 

All three guys, Sanders, Ritchie and Sagna, are staring at Sam, hanging onto his every word. Dean feels a flush of pride and he lets the corner of his mouth quirk up a little. Sam’s been hiding out in that lab for too damn long; he should’ve been up here all this time. After all, he’s the only one among them who really knows what he’s talking about. And these guys have no idea what they’re dealing with here. No one on this base even has a clue what Sam really is behind the gimpy, nerdy exterior. 

“So, you heard what Sam said,” Sanders says, turning to look at Sagna, Ritchie and Dean. “This is an opportunity. We gotta treat it like that. And I don’t need to add that this operation is vital to our future survival. We’ve all seen how much they’ve multiplied over the past couple of months. They’re harder to kill; they’re becoming immune to our tranqs. We need to do something now.” He waves a hand over the map spread out across the table between them. “Okay, so we take it sector by sector. We search every grid reference, every square foot on this map. We find this goddamn nest and then we nuke it.” He glances towards Sam again. “You think that the nest is somewhere on this map?” 

Dean watches his brother’s eyes skim across the map, quickly calculating and assessing. He nods, raises his head to meet Sanders’ gaze. “Yes. It’s gotta be within at least a thirty mile radius of the base, considering what we’ve been seeing lately. You guys are killing, like, fifty – sixty – seventy a day, right?” 

“More than that,” Dean says. 

Sam’s eyes meet his briefly and he nods again, all business. “Yes. Well, it all makes sense. Don’t forget that they need to be close to us. They’re drawn to us. They like being close to densely human-populated areas.” 

Sanders gives one of his decisive nods. “Okay. Then we get down to business, gentlemen. We start immediately. Divide up the sectors between the teams. Brief your fellow commanders. I want at least three grid squares covered today.” 

“Yes, sir,” Dean’s lips move automatically, his voice almost in synch with Ritchie and Sagna. 

“Okay, you can go.” Sanders waves a hand to dismiss them. “Sam, do you have a moment?” 

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Sam says. Dean pauses, exchanges a quick glance with his brother, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Sanders, his shrewd dark eyes narrowing in on Dean. 

Dean feels his cheeks redden and he thinks about Sanders watching that footage of him and Sam, of Sanders _knowing_. 

He twists his lips, manages a half-assed salute and runs out the room. 

 

**

 

On the fifth day, Red Team is covering Charlie Sector Three. This Sector is primarily dense woodland; trees so close together it’s hard to navigate through them, never mind do any kind of tracking. No one’s ventured this deep into the woods for years, they’ve all learned to stick to wide open spaces, places with good vantage points, places where you can see the horizon. Being surrounded by so many trees, the sun barely filtering through the thick dark pines is claustrophobic, intimidating, and downright uncomfortable. And of course, it’s raining, drops clinging to the dark pine needles, seeping into their skin and hair and clothes as they brush past. 

They’ve been walking for five hours and he’s pretty sure they’ve just been going in circles, even with Bryce’s freaky, innate sense of direction leading the way. He casts a quick glance at the rest of his team, following sullenly in his footsteps; they look unhappy, misery etched into their faces, eyes shifting too quickly, jumping at shadows. 

He swallows back the prickle of unease teasing at the back of his neck. He tries to concentrate, keep himself alert, eyes darting to every rustle of the bushes, every swaying branch. This is perfect ambush territory. 

“ _Sir! Incoming_!” Street yells from behind, and Dean whirls, cocking his revolver. A pack is heading towards them – four – five – six – of them skimming through the trees like they’re not even there, branches and twigs snapping and breaking to let them through, the air filled with snarls and howls, gnashing mouths and unsheathed claws. 

It’s single shots only in this terrain. They can’t risk bullets grazing and ricocheting off the tall tree trunks. He forces his body still. He can take them all out if he keeps calm, if all twelve of his team keep calm. He squints, waits, then roars: _“FIRE!”_

He lets off a round, hearing the rest of his team joining in. A bullet slices into the nearest creature’s temple, chunks of brain matter and bone and blood exploding and splattering bright red against the brown, black and green. 

He takes aim, fires again, sees another fall. The rest are tumbling, falling into the trees, stumbling and screaming; the sound of gunfire not the usual rapid clack of the machine guns, but a steady ear-splitting bang-click-bang-click. 

Once he sees the last one fall, he screams: “ _HOLD! HOLD FIRE!”_

Immediately, the shooting stops. His ears are ringing, deafened and foggy with tinnitus, then slowly, he hears someone calling, Lancaster’s panicked voice calling his name: “Sir! Sir! Boss!” 

He spins, sees the boy’s terrified upturned face, Bryce on his knees beside him, and lying on the ground in front of them: Navarro, chest and belly stained red. 

He springs forward, watches uselessly as Bryce gives CPR, his usually calm, gruff voice high and cracked with panic and adrenalin. 

_“C’mon, Tommy, c’mon, man! Stay with us! Fuck, Navarro, hold on!”_

Navarro’s face is slack, lips blue, eyes already glassy. Below him the blood is spreading, pooling underneath his body, seeping into the soil. 

Dean swallows, puts his hand on Bryce’s shoulder and squeezes. “Hey, hey,” he says gently. “He’s gone, man. He’s gone.” 

Bryce stiffens, freezes in place, hands threaded across Navarro’s chest, back arched. He sinks back on his haunches, brushes down Navarro’s shirt, rearranges his dog-tags, hands petting uselessly. 

Dean pats his shoulder again, raises his head. The rest of the team is crowded around, staring down at their fallen comrade. Djourou is cradling his elbow against his chest, blood dripping from a deep graze. 

“Gutierrez, see to Djourou’s arm,” he orders. 

He turns his back on them, taking a few steps away from the group, coming to a halt by one of the bigger, older trees. There are chunks ripped out of the bark, mottles and marks where the bullets must have grazed. Maybe it was this tree that deflected the fatal bullet, the one embedded in Navarro’s gut. It could’ve been any of them, it could’ve been him. No matter how hard he’d tried, not every one of his bullets had been on target. Friendly fire, the worst kind of oxymoron. 

He puts his hand to the back of his neck, eyes scanning listlessly over the never ending swathes of trees fanning out in front of them, dizzying layers and layers of trees, blocking out the sun and the sky above, hemming them in, claustrophobic and caged. His heartbeat is starting to quicken, and he swallows back the nagging edge of panic. They’re not hemmed in, they’re not caught. They’re gonna get out of there. They’re gonna make it back to base and he’ll see Sam again. 

That could’ve been him – what happened to Navarro could’ve happened to him. Hell, it probably deserved to be him. He’s had too many second chances, too many escapes from death over the years. He’s disrupted the natural order too many times. And he’d have been okay with it being him. He’s ready to go; he’s been ready these past three years. Only– 

He can’t go without Sam, and Sam’s not ready to go yet. Sam believes in what he’s doing. Sam still believes that he can save everybody. 

He lets his hand fall to his side. Damn it, they were doing so good, hadn’t lost anybody since Clancy, getting cocky perhaps. Hubris, as Castiel called it all those years ago. He turns around, looks over his team. Some of the guys have tear tracks on their faces, not bothering to hide their sorrow. Some just look resigned, some blank and emotionless. There have been so many deaths. It’s easy – _easier_ – to forget how to grieve for someone. It’s too easy to get immune to it, to the constant death and destruction. 

But still, this is Navarro. And Navarro – Jesus – he _liked_ that kid. 

He crouches down on the other side of Navarro’s body. He reaches over to close the boy’s eyes, push the wet greasy hair off his face. The way it falls across his forehead in heavy thick clumps reminding him with a wrench of Sam at the same age. 

“We should move out,” he says. 

Bryce nods his head. “Yes, we should.” 

Dean gets his arms under Navarro’s body, gathers him up. He slings him across his shoulders and stands up slowly, adjusting to the new weight. He can feel the blood seeping through from Navarro’s body into his own clothes, the boy’s arms dangling by his left hip. 

“Let’s move!” he calls out. “Bryce, get us outta here.” 

They walk for ten minutes, his shoulders and back aching with the weight of the dead boy. He’d like to carry him all the way back to the base. It’s what he deserves, though God knows he’s going to have to let someone else take over, stubborn pride and guilt will only get him so far. 

Up ahead Bryce comes to a halt. Bryce raises his hand, still with his back to them, the signal for them all to stop. He creeps forward, absorbed in something. Dean frowns and bends down, depositing Navarro’s body carefully amongst the damp leaves and soil. He signals for the rest of the guys to stay put and jogs forward to join Bryce. 

“What? What you found? Does it look like the nest?” he hisses. 

“Look,” Bryce says. He points towards a couple of large mounds of soil and leaves, a few feet wide and high. 

“What? What am I supposed to be looking at?” 

“Tunnels,” Bryce says. “Someone’s been tunneling around here.” He takes a couple of steps, puts down his rifle, hunkers down in front of the mounds and digs one hand in, shifting his fingers through the earth and soil and dirt. He tilts his head back, wipes off the dirt on his bloodstained pants, and looks up at Dean. “Like I thought, it’s recent. Someone, or some _thing’s_ been tunneling around here.” 

Dean swallows, that prickle of unease – the one that really hasn’t left him at all – starting to edge back under the collar of his jacket, flutter up and down his spine, awaken those goddamn snakes in his belly. 

“Some _thing_?” he repeats. 

Bryce nods grimly and straightens up. “Yeah.” He gathers up his rifle, slinging the strap across his shoulder. “It’s too fresh to be human, boss; no human’s been in this part of the woods for years. And it’s too big to be an animal – not that there are any animals left round here, those sonsofbitches have eaten them all.” 

“You think it’s the mutants? Digging? Burrowing?” He frowns. “I dunno, man.” 

Bryce shrugs. He picks his way around one of the mounds and Dean follows, casting uncertain glances at the piles of earth and leaves. They walk a little way then Bryce stops again and hunkers down, points at something ahead. “Look, there.” 

Dean tracks where he’s pointing. The trees are a little thinner here, and there’s a ditch, a spot where the ground falls away in a steep bank. Bryce is pointing to something on the other side of the bank, more piles of disturbed earth and small openings in the opposite bank: tunnel openings. 

“Shit,” he breathes. 

Bryce guides them out of the woods and back in the direction of the base. It’s less than a mile walk once they clear the edges of the wood, but Dean’s carrying Navarro again after a brief respite and he feels every step. 

They don’t encounter any more mutants, thank God, but they do see more of the mounds of earth, more evidence of tunnels. 

“These are really fresh,” Bryce mutters as he kneels down beside the last one – right on the edges of the wood – less than a mile from the wall. “Like, last couple of weeks or so. They’re moving fast.” 

Dean nods and bites his lip. It’s beginning to dawn on him how truly screwed they are. About a year ago, the mutants gave up on trying to get past the wall, some vague lab-rat intelligence informing them that that way lay only death and pain. These new tunnels must mean only one thing: they’re trying something else. 

 

** 

 

He leaves Bryce to report their findings to Sanders and Sam. Instead, he takes Navarro’s body to the morgue. 

He watches the morgue attendants strip and wash and sew up Navarro’s wounds. They unclasp the kid’s dog tags and hand them to him. Dean makes a fist around them and sighs, dropping his head in his hands as he listens to the attendants finishing up their work. He has to go tell the kid’s family, that cute little sister with the crush on him. He has to tell that their son, their brother, is dead. That he died on his watch. Just one stupid bullet, one damn ricocheting bullet, and they’d been trying so hard, trying to be so damn careful. 

He hears the attendants leave then he gets to his feet. He stands over the gurney and pulls back the sheet. Navarro looks – well – he looks dead. Dead like Sammy looked all those years ago at Cold Oak, dead like Lisa, like Ben, like Bobby, like Dad in that hospital. So many people, everyone they know, all of them dead. Except for him and Sam, and what did they ever do to deserve to still be here? 

He brushes the hair back from Navarro’s face, combs it neatly back into place with his fingers. For a dead body he doesn’t look too bad. He’s seen worse, and at least the boy was never bit. He’ll tell the family that. It was quick, a bullet wound to the gut, he bled out. Quick and relatively painless and human. He died a human. These days, that’s all they can hope for. 

He pulls the sheet back in place. He closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, conscious of the burning behind his sockets, the twinge in his back and shoulders from carrying the body, the cramping stiffness in his joints and muscles from the constant fear and dread. 

He leaves the morgue and makes his way towards the civilian quarters.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean’s dreaming again. 

He’s in a forest and he’s running. Trees and branches whip against his face, a trickle of blood runs down his cheek, hot tears sting his eyes. 

Something’s chasing him. 

_Dean…_

He skids to a stop, tumbles to the ground, claws at the wet dirt, soil clinging to his fingers. 

_Dean…._

“Sam! Sammy! Is that you? Sam, where are you?” 

_Sam’s not here, Dean. Don’t you recognize me? I’ve been trying to talk to you._

He scrabbles to his feet, spins around. He’s alone. The forest dark and claustrophobic, closing him in. He staggers a couple of steps, stumbles against a tree. He grasps at it, steadies himself, screams out, “Who are you? What do you want?” 

_I’m your friend, Dean. I’ve always been your friend. I just want to talk to you._

“All my friends are dead!” 

_Not me. Listen to me, Dean. I can’t stay for long._

His fingers scrape against the bark, splinters dig under his fingernails. 

“Who the hell are you? What did you do with Sam? Why are you chasing me?” 

_I would never hurt Sam. I would never hurt you. I’ve been watching you for a long time. I never abandoned you, Dean. Just listen to me, there’s something you have to-_

“Dean!” 

He jolts awake, chest heaving, body shaking, hands trembling. 

“Dean? Dean?” 

Sam’s face is looming over him. “Sammy?” he croaks. 

Sam leans in, cups his cheek, traces one finger over his eyebrow, another over his parted lips. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Just a dream, man. You were dreaming.” 

He gulps, nuzzles into Sam’s hand, inhales the salty, familiar scent of his brother’s skin. 

“You wanna share?” Sam says. 

He pushes Sam away, reaches for the cup of water on his nightstand. Sam shuffles back, giving him some space as he drains the entire cup. He’s still trembling, his muscles aching, stiff with exhaustion and the remnants of the dream. He feels clammy and disgusting, his body slick with sweat. He raises his hand to his neck, slides his fingers under the chain of his dogtags to massage at the cramped up muscles. 

“Hey, let me,” Sam says. 

He drops his hand, feels Sam scoot closer again then his hands are on Dean’s neck and shoulders, digging in with just the right kind of pressure. 

He groans in relief, tips his head back. Sam bends closer, presses a dry kiss to his temple. “I think you should talk about it,” he says. 

Of course Sam thinks he should talk about it. It’s what they do these days, they talk about stuff, they share stuff, even stupid nightmares. 

“I can’t remember,” he lies. 

“Bullshit,” says Sam, and he sounds amused. He pauses in the awesome massaging and says, “If you tell me, I’ll keep going. If you don’t then you’re gonna have to massage your own damn neck.” 

“You’re evil.” 

Sam chuckles. “Just tell me, Dean.” 

“Something was chasing me,” he says at last. 

“What was chasing you?” 

“Take your fuckin’ pick. Maybe I was just remembering before – the hellhounds. Or maybe, you know – in the forest – with that trap–“ he trails off, feels Sam hesitate for a second in his massaging. “Or perhaps. Fuck, I don’t know. It’s stupid.” 

“What do you mean, it’s stupid?” 

“I don’t know, man, it was just that it – it felt familiar. It said that it was my friend, _our_ friend, that it was watching us, that it hadn’t abandoned us.” He hesitates, licks his lips. “This, uh, this is probably gonna sound crazy, Sam, but I think it might be Cas. I think he might be trying to talk to me.” 

“Cas? But the angels left. He said they couldn’t do anything. They abandoned us.” 

“I know, I know. But think about it, man. He used to come to me in dreams all the time.” 

“Did he?” 

Dean turns around to look at him. “Yeah, you remember? It was like a safe place, where he could get to me without all those other sonsofbitches overhearing. Like our safe place?” 

“Your safe place?” Sam repeats, trying and failing to keep the catty note from his voice. 

Dean looks at him for a second before his mouth curls up into a delighted grin. “Oh man, you’re jealous. You’re totally jealous.” 

Sam removes his hands from Dean’s shoulders and narrows his eyes. “I’m not jealous." 

“Yeah you are. You’re acting jealous of me and Cas. Oh dude, this is so awesome.” 

“Jesus, Dean, I’m not jealous of you and Cas, I’ve never been jealous!” 

“Haha, yeah, right, of course not.” 

Sam makes a frustrated sound and body-checks him, sending him sprawling onto his side. Dean just keeps laughing, reaching out to prod his brother in the side with his big toe. 

“You gonna stop laughing anytime soon?” 

“You gonna make me?” 

Sam raises an eyebrow and pounces, throwing himself down on top of Dean so his body smothers Dean’s own, blanketing him from head to toe. He grabs onto his brother’s flailing arms, jerking them above his head and pinning them down against the mattress.

Dean stares up into Sam’s shadowed face, heart rate quickening, heat awakening in his belly. He could flip them if he wanted, take charge and put himself on top, Sam’s missing limb gives him the advantage in all their brotherly and unbrotherly sparring these days. But this feels good, the weight of his brother’s body pressing him down into the mattress, his hot breath puffing against the side of his face. 

“I should make you jealous more often if this is how you react,” he says. 

Sam bites his earlobe, hisses, “For the last goddamn time, Dean, I ain’t jealous!” 

He snickers. “Sure, Sammy, whatever you say.” 

Sam makes an exasperated noise and rolls off him. “Ugh, God, you’re so annoying!” 

Dean laughs again and props himself up on his elbows to glance at the clock. 

“Aw, crap, it’s after five.” 

He heaves himself out of bed and pads to the bathroom, feeling his brother’s gaze on him the entire time. 

Sam follows him into the bathroom a minute later; crutch jammed under one arm, still wearing just his boxers. He sits gingerly on the edge of the tub and turns his head to watch Dean shower. 

“Go back to bed, dude. You don’t gotta get up yet,” Dean tells him. 

“No, it’s fine. Anyway, not gonna go back to sleep now. Today’s the big day, remember?” 

Oh shit, of course. The big day. The big mission. He’d forgotten about that. 

Yesterday, when Dean got back, when he went to the morgue, when he broke the bad news to Navarro’s parents, when he went back to their room and passed out from tiredness, while he was doing all that, Sam and Sanders and Ritchie and various other important people put together the big plan. The next step in Operation Search and Destroy. 

The shower shudders to a stop and Sam grabs onto his hand as he steps out the tub. “Hey, Dean, c’mere,” he says. 

Dean lets himself be tugged in; stepping between his brother’s parted thighs. Sam places his hands on his waist, thumbs caressing his slippery wet hip bones; he tilts his head back and stares up into Dean’s face. 

“You remember what we talked about before? About you backing me up on this?” 

Dean frowns. “I thought you had it all worked out already. You and Sanders and rest of the A-team.” He can’t stop his tone from getting a little sharp over that last part, which Sam doesn’t miss at all, the corner of his mouth quirking up a little as he keeps looking at Dean. 

“Yeah, we got a plan,” he says. “But I need you to back me up. I want to come out there with you; I want be part of it. I’m sick of being stuck in here. I haven’t been past the wall in – Christ – you know how long it’s been. Not since we got here! And I want in on this. You know I can help, you know what I can do. You gotta help me convince Sanders.” 

“Sam – I–“ 

“No, before you say it. Just – please. Don’t write me off. I lost my leg, I didn’t lose everything else! I can still shoot, I can still defend myself. Let me go out there. You know I can help.” 

His stomach is churning, fingers twitching as he listens to his brother talk. He should’ve known. He should’ve known that Sam wouldn’t be prepared to stay behind, not now that he remembers what it was like to be a part of the real action. 

Sam raises his hand from Dean’s hip, cups the side of his face and forces him to look down, to meet his eyes. Dean places his hands either side of his brother’s neck, thumbs brushing the edges of his jaw. 

“I’m a hunter, it’s what I am. I want to hunt those sonsofbitches. I want to destroy them,” Sam insists. “I’m sick of watching you go out there on your own. We should be together, Dean, like we used to.” 

He caresses his thumbs gently over the firm fragile bones of his brother’s jaw. He trusts Sam implicitly, as a hunting partner, he’s always trusted him. But it’s been years, and okay, so Sam is still Sam, still with the same knowledge and abilities, but– 

What if they have to run? What if those things come at them and they have to run and Sam _can’t_ run - that useless piece of shit leg of his – and what’s he gonna do? Crutch himself away? 

He takes a breath, says, “You’ll listen to me? You’ll take orders and stay in the Jeep when I tell you to?” 

“Yeah, yeah, course. I’m not dumb, I know I’m not gonna be able to keep up on foot.” 

Dean swallows, says, “Then, yeah, okay. If this is what you want then I’ll back you up.” 

Sam grins, wide and beautiful, and wraps his arms around Dean’s waist, pulling him in and pressing his lips to Dean’s damp chest. 

“Thanks, man. You won’t regret it. You and me, huntin’ again. Like it should be, right?” 

Dean nods and swallows back the uneasiness, pushing it to the back of his mind. “Yeah, Sammy, yeah.” He rests his hand on the top of Sam’s head and cards his fingers through the messy strands of hair. “You gotta promise me that you’ll follow my orders. You promise that?” 

Sam tips his head back and rolls his eyes at him. “Dude, I’ve always followed your orders.” 

Dean bites his tongue on all the many, _many_ times Sam hasn’t followed his orders at all over the years. But it’s not gonna help to think of all that. What matters is the two of them and right now and going through with this big mission. 

He sinks down to the floor, wet knees on the cold tile. He places his damp palms on Sam’s knee and stump and parts his thighs. 

“Dean? What are you doing?”

Dean smirks, puts his thumbs under the edges of Sam’s waistband, and peels down his boxers. “Lift up your ass,” he says. 

Sam does and Dean slides the shorts down over Sam’s stump, letting them pool around his one ankle. Sam’s cock is already hardening, filling and thickening as he watches, one eyebrow raised, smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. He leans in, nuzzles his face between his brother’s thighs, licks at his balls. 

“Dean, Jesus!” Sam yelps, floundering and grabbing onto the edge of the tub. 

Dean chuckles evilly, and tips his head back. “You want me to stop?” 

“Fuck no, just – give me some more warning next time. Fuck, man.” 

“Well, hold on tight, this is gonna be one helluva ride.” 

Sam groans and Dean grins again, licks his lips and sucks the head of his brother’s cock into his mouth. 

He makes it as messy as possible, drool running down the swollen red shaft of Sam’s dick, slicking down his own chin. Sam’s breathing heavily, one hand on the back of Dean’s neck, the other locked in a death grip on the rim of the tub. Dean’s got his own hand braced on the end of Sam’s stump, the other cupping and caressing his brother’s balls, fingers playing with the wiry pubic hair. 

Sam’s gasping his name, murmuring breathy nonsensical words, _Goddamn best blowjob, Dean, so fuckin’ good, so good at this, no one gives head like you…_

Damn fucking straight, Dean thinks, and he smiles around his brother’s cock, swirls his tongue against the thick vein on the underside, tongues at the slit. He can feel it when Sam’s about to come, breath hitching, fingers tightening their hold on his neck. Sam holds him in place as his dick pulses and comes into Dean’s mouth. He relaxes his hold and Dean pulls back, cheeks plumped and mouth full of Sam’s release. He raises his eyebrows at his brother, taking in his sweaty, red-faced appearance, and leans over the side of the tub to spit into the bath. 

“Oh, man, gross,” Sam says, but he’s laughing, turning his head to watch the goopy, white slick of his own jizz and the translucent bubbles of Dean’s saliva circle the drain in one gooey mess. Dean licks his lips and grins unapologetically. He gets to his knees and cups his own erection; holding the base of his cock, he pushes the head towards his brother’s face, smearing it across his lips. 

“Now it’s your turn,” he states. 

Sam hesitates, but it’s only for a second, then he tilts his head back and smiles. He parts his lips and widens his eyes and lets Dean guide his cock inside his mouth. 

Dean sighs blissfully, rests his hands on his brother’s shoulders and closes his eyes.

 

**

In addition to Sam and Dean, the mission group includes five members of Red Team, five members of Gold Team, Sagna – the Gold Leader, Field – the base’s tall, no-nonsense sergeant at arms, and a swarthy, thickset guy called Aprille, an explosive and demolitions expert who usually works with the construction teams. 

Sanders pulls Dean aside after the briefing’s over, his dark weathered face unusually tense. 

“Are you going to be able to handle this, Dean?” he says. “Having your brother out there with you too?” 

Dean blinks, surprised. It had been Sanders who’d suggested that Sam join them in the end, seconding Sam’s proposition with no hesitation, stating that they needed to have an expert in the field, that Sam was the obvious choice. 

“I – yeah – yeah – course. Look, Sir, you don’t gotta worry about Sam. You have no idea what he’s capable of. He’s a damn fine hunter, the best. I know you don’t really know what that means, but as a soldier, I’d pick Sam over every other guy in my squad, and you know how good my guys are.” 

“I wasn’t asking about Sam, Commander, I was asking about you. Are _you_ going to be able to handle it? Or will it prove a distraction, having your brother out there with you?” 

Dean feels his face heat up, and he grits his teeth. He knows exactly what Sanders is implying, but he can be a professional, goddamnit, and this is old news for him and Sam. 

“No, not at all, Sir,” he says. 

“Okay. Just don’t prove me wrong.” 

Sanders’ words are still ringing in Dean’s ears when he climbs into the front of the Red Team’s Jeep alongside Jackson. Sam’s in the back with Bryce, Tachman, Street, Gutierrez and the explosives guy, Aprille, and he has to stop himself from glancing over his shoulder every few seconds to check up on him. 

He hates to admit it, but Sanders is right. Having Sam out here with him is distracting. It’s been a long time since it was him and Sam on a hunt, and the old automatic trust and easy synchronicity seems unfamiliar. He can’t help it, but he’s already worrying about Sam, wishing he’d stayed back at the base, safe and snug in CIC with Sanders and that bastard, Weiner. 

He’d helped Sam get dressed this morning, helped him pull the military green fatigue pants – the biggest they could find – over the prosthetic. They’d been tight around the bulky prosthetic and baggy around Sam’s slim waist and good right leg, and wonder of wonders, they’d been even a little too long. Sam had stood straight and waited patiently while Dean fiddled with the drawstring and applied safety pins, cinching in the waist and turning up the hems as much as he could. It had reminded him of the times when they were young, when Sammy would go through one of his growth spurts and they’d have to make a trip to a thrift store for new clothes. Dean had usually ended up buying clothes that were too big for his little brother, turning up the hems on Sam’s pants or the cuffs of his shirts, taking in the waists, making do with his less than mediocre sewing skills, ripping the stitches out a couple of months later when Sam hit yet another growth spurt. 

He bites his lip and concentrates on the landscape spooling out in front of them, Gold Team’s Jeep just a couple of lengths ahead. The sun is just beginning to rise, the day cloudy and chill, dampness in the air as always. 

Unlike humans, the mutants don’t seem to have a particular preference for night or day. The lack of light is irrelevant to them, (they’re blind after all), tracking by smell and sound. He wonders sometimes why they haven’t become fully nocturnal, like other animals with poor vision, hell, like most zombies in most zombie movies. Maybe it’s some sort of leftover human thing, some instinct in them that has them staying out during the daytime. Or maybe, like other cold-blooded animals, they just like the feel of the sun on their skin. 

He reviews the plan as they bump across the terrain. It’s pretty simple, though there’s plenty of room for error, and he’s not naive or hopeful enough to think that they’re going to succeed this time around. They have no foolproof way of knowing the exact location of the tunnels. They don’t even know for sure if that’s what the mutants are doing. Still, they’re hoping to cause some damage today, and if Dean’s got anything to say about it, then that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Field and Aprille will place explosives in strategic spots along the tunnel lines, or at least where they think the tunnel lines lie. The explosives should take out the tunnels, render them impassable, and hopefully kill off a few of the motherfuckers at the same time. 

Just ahead of them, the Gold Team Jeep skids to a halt. Jackson jams on the brakes, grinding them to a stop a few feet behind. Dean jumps out and walks over to Sagna who’s climbing out of the Gold Team Jeep. 

“This the first one?” Dean asks. 

Sagna nods, “Yup.” 

Dean stands beside Sagna and watches Field, briefcase of explosive devices tucked under his arm, go to join Aprille by the blast site. The rest of Red Team, including Sam, stay in the Jeep, rifles raised, scopes up and barrels pointed out towards the edges of the wood. From this spot, they could be easily caught out; the dark shadowed trees masking all movements inside the wood. 

The five members of Gold Team form a perimeter around Aprille and Field as they place the devices, pushing them down into the earth like they’re planting bedding plants. The explosions should be enough to collapse and destroy any tunnels underneath, hopefully suffocating or exploding a good many mutants in the process. 

Or at least that’s the plan. 

Dean swallows and licks his lips. His mouth is dry, and he thinks about going to fetch his canteen. His arms and shoulders are aching with a dull, persistent throb, muscles still protesting from carrying Navarro’s body for so long the other day and last night’s lack of sleep. 

His gaze drifts over towards his brother, unchecked; Sam’s got his rifle on his shoulder, half his face hidden by the scope. He looks calm, almost serene, his face locked into that characteristic Sammy concentration. 

“We’re done!” yells Field, dragging Dean’s attention away from Sam and back towards the action. Field’s grim face looking even grimmer as he retrieves the briefcase and jogs back towards Gold Team’s Jeep. Aprille climbs into the back of their Jeep, the remote detonator clutched in one hand. 

They drive about twenty yards, still within close sight of the blast points, but out of the blast radius. The explosions should be contained, they’re supposed to be kept mainly underground, but they don’t know how far the tunnels extend underground or how far the reverberations could travel. The two Jeeps, not to mention the guys inside them, are some of the base’s most important assets; they’re not taking any chances. 

Dean’s in the back of the Jeep, squashed up close next to Sam, their thighs pressed together. He raises his head, meets Aprille’s eye and gives the order. “Hit ‘em.” 

Aprille smiles dourly and presses the button on the detonator in his hand.

The explosion is loud; louder than Dean was expecting. Chunks and clods of earth, leaves and branches rain to the ground. Even at this relative distance, he can feel the dust and soil against his skin, in his lungs, on his tongue, the scene around them reminding him of a climactic scene from one of those old movies about trench warfare. He blinks, wipes the dust from his eyes, and stares. 

There are craters in the ground, stones and earth and clods of soil tumbling away at the edges, rolling into the newly formed ditch. He’s overwhelmingly grateful that they moved the vehicles out of the way, if they’d stayed where they were the earth would’ve given way right under the tires, sent them tumbling ass over ears into the ditch. 

“Christ,” Sam murmurs beside him. 

He snorts in acknowledgement and jumps down off the Jeep, followed by Aprille and Bryce. They approach cautiously, and peer over the edge of the crater. 

The first thing that surprises him is that it goes pretty deep. The fuckers must’ve been living underground for a while, building their own little world down here, maybe using some existing underground cave; the hole is certainly deep enough to indicate that this used to be an existing cave. He shudders at the thought, all those mutants living and breathing and maybe even breeding underground like hideous humanoid blindworms. 

The second thing he notices when the dust starts to clear is that there are bodies: broken, shredded, blown-up mutant bodies, lumps of flesh and bone and meat, a horrific mass grave. 

“Holy shit,” he breathes. 

“Must be about hundred of them under there,” Bryce murmurs beside him. 

“How much freakin’ Semtex did they use?” Dean snorts. 

“It wasn’t Semtex,” the sergeant at arms, Field, corrects him. “And it was the right amount for the size of the blast we wanted. It did the job, didn’t it?” 

“Yes it sure did,” Sagna says, quick and soothing. 

Dean resists the urge to roll his eyes; he’d forgotten what a prickly bastard Field could be. 

“Shit, I think some of ‘em are still alive,” Bryce murmurs. 

Dean swings his attention back to the crater. Bryce is right. Some of the mangled limbs and bodies are moving, some staggering and crawling and clawing at the edges of the crater, burrowing into the dirt, scrambling around and over each other like bees in a hive. 

“Not for long,” says Sagna. He raises his revolver, and shoots, two of the slithering, struggling creatures collapsing like broken mattresses. “Like sitting ducks.” 

Dean huffs out a breath, knocks off the safety, and fires where he sees signs of movement, watching the bodies crumple one by one. Fucking poetic justice. 

“Sir! We got company!” yells Street from the Jeep, voice only just registering over the noise of gunfire. _“Boss! Incoming! Three o’clock!”_

Dean spins around, vision taking in an impression of blurred, mangled mutant flesh emerging from the dark shadowed trees. They’re heading straight for them – for the five of them standing out by the crater – exposed, totally exposed. 

He dimly registers Sam’s voice, or maybe he’s imagining it, hearing his brother yell his name, muted out by the sounds of wild gunfire and mutant howls. 

Beside him, Sagna is firing like a mad-man, like freaking Scarface, pumping out round after round, the bullets slamming uselessly into soft, tumorous flesh. Not headshots – why’s he not going for headshots? He knows that it’s gotta be headshots these days. 

_“Move!”_ Dean roars, and he grabs Bryce’s collar, snatching up a handful of Aprille’s jacket with his other hand, dragging them in his wake. _“C’mon! Move! Move! Move!”_

They run, sprint for the Jeep, the howls and screaming and gunfire in their ears, twenty yards – fifteen yards – ten yards – five yards – and he can see the whites of his brother’s eyes, can see where Gutierrez has kicked down the tailgate. He pushes Aprille first, hand on his back shoving him into the jeep, his knees scuffing on the metal bed, then Bryce scrambling, leaping up to safety, twisting around to fire. 

Dean whirls around and it’s there – the mutant – there – it’s fucking _there_ – he can smell its putrid, rank body, and he’s frozen – petrified – snaps of memory making his legs fail – heavy as water: hellhounds - the rack – hell – slathering mouths and smoke and demons and rotting flesh and flies – so many fucking flies – he’d forgotten the flies – hatching their maggots into the half-dismembered bodies on his rack- 

_“Dean!”_

Someone grabs him, big hands under his armpits and he’s hauled up, snatched from the jaws of the mutant, and the mutant’s head snaps back, face shot clean in two like a bad special effect, the thunder of a shotgun round ringing in his ears. And Sam’s arms are wrapped around him, Sam’s voice in his ears, shaken and frightened and beautiful, “ _Jesus Christ, Dean, that was close. It nearly got you… God, Dean…”_

He pulls away from his brother, consciousness flaring back, hellfire fading as Sam helps him to his feet. He’s still clutching his .45, white knuckles around the pearl handle. He swallows, raises his head, meeting his brother’s eyes for a second before blinking and pulling away, turning to take aim at the nearest mutant. 

They’re attacking the sides of the Jeep, dozens of them, hands grasping and clawing, mindlessly scraping at the metal. Tachman is kicking one in the face, big heavy boot smacking soft and wet into its bulbous, spongy flesh. 

“Tachman! Back!” Dean roars. She dives back and he takes aim, slams two shots into the thing’s head. Beside him, Sam is pumping his shotgun, firing one shot after the other at the bastards clawing at the Jeep, dispatching them as quickly and effortlessly as targets on a fairground booth, bodies flung back one after the other until they circle the ground around the vehicle, a fleshy circumference of blood and guts and gore. 

Dean takes a couple of breaths, does a quick scan: Jackson peering through the window in the driver’s seat, Gutierrez, Street, Tachman, Aprille, Bryce and Sam in the back with him. 

“Everyone okay?” he says. 

A round of “yes, Sir’s” and nods answer him and he breathes a sigh of relief. At his belt, his radio crackles, Sagna’s voice coming over the com-link. 

“Red Leader? Confirm status.” 

“All healthy and sane, Gold Leader. Ready to move out when you are.” 

“Copy that.” 

The next location is about half a mile east, following the edges of the wood. Dean settles into the seat beside Sam, feels his brother press his thigh up against his own as they jolt and rock. 

“You alright?” he asks in a low voice. 

Sam grimaces with half his mouth. “Is it always like that?” 

Across from them Tachman snorts, pumps her shotgun. Dean smirks. “I think that’s a yeah, pretty much.” 

“Jesus,” Sam breathes. “I did not need to know that.” 

“Hey, quit worrying, you did good.” He nudges Sam in the side. 

“Yeah, dude, that was some awesome shooting just then,” Gutierrez adds. He looks genuinely impressed. “What, you took down, like, eight of those motherfuckers, like one after the other. Don’t even think the Commander can shoot that well.” 

“Hey, you watch what you’re sayin’,” Dean says, raising one finger to the kid. “Anyway, he learned it all from me, right, bro?” He nudges Sam in the side again, watches Sam huff out a smile, roll his eyes at him in an almost playful way. He’s stoked that the guys have noticed just how freaking good Sam is, just what he’s capable of, that he’s not just this weirdo, gimpy scientist who spends all his time locked up in the lab with monsters. And well, it _is_ true. Sam’s always been a better shot that him. He’s man enough to admit it. 

The Jeep pulls up a moment later, and he gets down, watches Field and Aprille do their thing again. This time there are no mutants. No swarming bodies deep down in the blasted craters, no unwelcome surge from the trees. 

“You think we got it?” he asks Sagna as they walk back to the vehicles. 

Sagna shrugs. “It’s the right coordinates. Though, sure, the coordinates could’ve been off. We’re just guessing here, Winchester.” 

The next two sets of coordinates take them into the woods which means no Jeep, no rifles, and more importantly, no Sam. 

Dean stalks back to the vehicle, prepared to put up with his brother’s complaints when he announces that Sam’s got to stay behind this time, but Sam is uncharacteristically deferential, nodding in agreement and promising to stay and protect the Jeep. One of the Gold Team guys is also staying behind on their Jeep, and Dean can’t help but feel relieved that Sam won’t be left completely alone. Not that he has any concerns about Sam not being able to handle himself; Sam proved that he can handle himself just fine only minutes before when he took out ten mutants with ten shotgun rounds, it’s just that… 

Old habits die hard, and in Dean’s case, they don’t die at all, and deep down, despite his faith in Sam’s abilities, he’s still the same overprotective big brother he’s always been. 

The trek into the woods is no better than it was a couple of days ago, the day Navarro died. It’s just as dark and creepy and he’s feeling just as antsy, _more antsy_ ‘cause he can’t get his mind away from Sam sitting alone on that Jeep like Sasquatch sized bait. 

The next explosion goes smoothly. This time there are mutants in the hole. Not as many as in the first crater, but enough for them to feel like they’re actually getting somewhere, like they’re not just blowing up random bits of Western Oregon countryside in a deranged scavenger hunt. 

It freaks Dean out to see all the mutants packed into the craters, crawling over each other like monster-sized maggots, all that identical, spongy, tumorous flesh. This time they lob a grenade in there; watch it rip the remaining bodies into chunky soup. 

They trudge onwards, following Sagna’s map to the final location, getting deeper into the wood, close to the spot where Bryce had first noticed the tunnels. The air seems to get heavier, the trees thicker, everything darker and more oppressive, or at least that’s how it seems, he could be imagining it all, getting some sort of tree-related cabin fever. 

Everything goes wrong this time. The remote detonator doesn’t work. Aprille smashes at it with his big shovel-like hands, but nothing happens, no tremors, no noise, no big-ass explosion. 

“We gotta do this manually,” Aprille announces, tossing the detonator back into Field’s briefcase with a look of disgust. 

Field groans and Dean watches the two guys trudge back to the packs of not-Semtex. They dig out the blocks of explosive and wrap wires about them, fixing and fiddling until they seem happy. Field gets to his feet and bends over almost double to unwind and lay the wire across the ground from his enormous spool, the thin red wire snaking across the muddy soil. 

Dean looks away, and stares into the dim dense trees. It’s mesmerizing, staring at the endless array of dark tall tree trunks, fanning out endlessly in front of him. Hypnotic, he thinks absently, he could go into a trance right now; it would be so easy to– 

Someone screams. He jumps, whirls on the spot, hazy mind trying to pinpoint the source. 

Something’s got Aprille. Something’s pulling him down into the earth, Aprille screaming, shouting, yelling for help, his arms flailing. One of the Gold Team guys is standing over him, emptying his weapon, another grabbing and tugging at Aprille’s arms. But whatever has him has got him harder than that snake monster got Luke Skywalker in the freaking Death Star garbage chamber. 

Aprille vanishes, sucked into the earth right in front of their eyes. 

Dean skids to a stop, not even aware that he’d been running towards them. His heart is thumping so hard he can’t hear his own thoughts. 

A few yards in front of him, Sagna barks out an order: “Back! Retreat! Everyone back!” 

The grouped soldiers seem to come back to life, scurrying back, Dean among them, caught up with the shell-shocked others. 

“Finish laying the charge,” Sagna tells Field, and even Sagna, even grizzled, seen-it-all veteran Sagna, Gold Team Leader, sounds rattled. 

Field swallows hard and nods, bending over again to continue unspooling the wire. 

“Christ, what the hell was that?” Dean hisses under his breath at Sagna. 

Sagna grimaces, lip curling up into a snarl. “No fuckin’ clue, but we need to blow this shit and get the hell outta here.” 

Damn straight, Dean thinks, gritting his teeth. He swallows hard, sets his shoulders. He strides back towards his own team. “Everyone okay?” 

Shaky “yes, sir’s” and wide-eyed nods greet him, and he thinks again about how fucking relative their lives are these days. No one is really okay, they just saw a guy sucked into the earth right in front of them for Christ’s sake, but just because no one’s been bitten or is mortally wounded, they’re all okay. They can deal. Not like they got a choice. 

He thinks of Sam, sitting out in that Jeep on his own with just a shotgun, assault rifle and a couple of grenades to keep him safe. He pushes the thought away and watches Field finish up laying the wire and fixing it to a new manual detonator. He looks up when he’s done, and nods at Dean. 

“Okay, let’s get clear,” Dean says to his team, herding them backwards and away from the blast site. 

He can see Sagna doing the same thing on the other side, and he waits for him to raise his hand, the signal that they’re ready. He glances at Field and nods. “Okay, hit it.” 

Field grunts and presses the button. This blast seems bigger than the others, the reverberation lingering for longer. It rips up earth and roots and pebbles and stones and plants and body parts - mutant body parts – raining to the ground around them. 

Dean cradles his head, ears ringing with the blast. He blinks in disbelief as a severed arm drops to the ground beside his foot. This really is like the freaking Somme. 

Mutants are crawling out of the crater, swarming across the floor like enormous maggots, claws outstretched and teeth gnashing, some without legs or arms, slithering over each other to get towards the stench and smell of the humans. 

“Jesus Christ,” Bryce whispers beside him. 

Dean chokes back the bile at the back of throat, and gives the order. _“Fire! Attack!”_

Gunfire rips apart the air around him. From the other side of the crater, he watches one of Sagna’s guys lob a grenade into the swarming pit of mutants. 

“Aprille’s somewhere in there,” Bryce pants. “The guy was a civilian, just doing Sanders a favor!” 

Dean doesn’t say anything. What’s the point? The guy is dead. Nothing they can do now. 

His radio crackles to life, Sam’s voice: _“Dean! Dean! Come in! Dean, are you there?”_

He fumbles with his radio, barks out: “Sam? What is it?” 

_“I got company, Dean, a lot of ‘em.”_

He swallows hard, panic gripping at his gut. He forces himself under control. 

“How many?” 

_“Like, thirty, thirty-five, maybe more, all round the Jeep. I, uh, I’ve taken out a few but – there’s so fuckin’ many of them, Dean, and that other guy–“_ a crackle and Sam’s voice catches, the sound of gunfire – _“he bought it, Dean. He’s dead.”_

“Hang on, Sammy, just hang on. We’ll be there.” 

He spins around, mouth already screaming the words to the rest of his team: “We’re moving! Now! Now! Move out!” He doesn’t wait to see if the order registers, just takes off, sprinting back through the trees, the way they came. He’s got to get back to the Jeep, got to get to Sam. 

His radio crackles, Sagna’s voice: _“Red Leader! Come in, Red Leader! Winchester, where the fuck you goin’?”_

He ignores it. He doesn’t care. Got to get to Sam. Got to get to Sam. He bursts through the trees, jumping, bounding over roots and surging through bushes. He can hear voices behind him, someone calling his name. He ignores it. 

The trees start to thin, becoming sparser, and he can see the glint of metal through the green and brown, make out the pale, fleshy blur of the mutants, and he roars out his brother’s name, scream ripped from his throat. 

Half a dozen of the fuckers turn away from the Jeep, drawn to his voice. He raises his shotgun and fires, taking them out as he runs, screaming and bellowing like a deranged GI Joe. Behind him, he’s half-aware of more voices, more shots, more mutants falling as they draw them away from the vehicles. 

He lowers his weapon and sprints to the Jeep, jumps up into the bed, ducking his head at the spray of gunfire around them. 

Sam’s hunched up over one side of the Jeep, cradling his left arm against his chest, blood seeping from a wound, staining his sleeve and chest. He’s still firing, rifle clutched awkwardly in his other hand. 

He cranes his head up at Dean and blinks, mouth falling inwards, crumpling. Dean stares back at him and feels his heart snap open. 

Silently, Sam holds out his arm, the ripped, bloodstained sleeve, the mark. The bite mark. 

“Dean, I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

Dean shakes his head, falls to his knees, kneecaps ringing at the impact. 

“No.” The word barely made, barely formed. “No, Sammy, no. Not you. It can’t be you.” 

He bows his head, curls his arms around himself, face touching his knees, palms slipping loose to smash against the grooved metal of the jeep bed. 

“No,” he repeats, “no, no.” 

“Boss? Commander?” 

He freezes; raises his head. 

“Dean?” 

He twists around, still kneeling. It’s Jackson, she’s eying him nervously, the rest of the guys grouped around her. He hadn’t even noticed that they’d killed all the fuckers, that they’d won. 

“What do we do now?” she asks. 

He looks over his shoulder, sees Sam curled up in the corner of the jeep, his arm wrapped and hidden in his camo jacket, eyes hooded. He takes a breath and decides. 

“We head back,” he tells them. 

He hears the guys take in the order, Jackson moving to slide into the front seat, Bryce with her. The truck bed creaks as the rest get in. Dean just stares at Sam, their eyes locked. 

“Shh,” he mouths, “don’t say a word.” He bores the words into Sam, sees him blink then nod, terror and fear in the whites of his eyes. Dean sits down beside him, presses their bodylines together, only half-aware of the strange looks being thrown his way by his team. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispers into Sam’s ear. “Trust me. I know what we gotta do.”


	8. Chapter 8

Dean ignores the crackle of his radio on the ride back to the base. He ignores the looks from his team. He ignores everything but the shaking in his own body and the shaking in his brother’s body where Sam’s pressed up hard against him. 

Jackson pulls up safely on the other side of the wall and Dean hustles Sam to his feet and off the Jeep. He slams his fist against the side of the cab; Bryce pokes his head out and stares at him. “Boss, what the hell is going on?” 

Dean avoids his eyes, barks out the order: “Take them in. Make the report to Sanders. Tell him what happened.” 

“Dean–“ 

“Just do it!” 

He pulls Sam in closer, feeling his almost catatonic brother fall into him. “You still carrying?” he says. 

Dazedly, Sam nods, pulls a .45 out of his pocket, hands it to Dean. Dean takes it, holds it out to Bryce. Bryce hesitates and Dean jerks his hand. 

“Take it.” 

Silently, Bryce takes it. 

“C’mon, Sam, let’s go.” 

He makes for the lab. If Sam realizes where they’re going he doesn’t say anything. He’s in shock, Dean thinks. He hasn’t processed it yet. He can’t have. Regular Sammy wouldn’t act like this, regular Sammy would already be pulling away from him, demanding that his big brother put the gun to his head and finish him. 

Sam’s leaning on him, his gait stiff and awkward, breath coming hard, in high, wheezing pants, a step away from hyperventilating. He’s not got his cane and Dean slows their pace, threads his arm around his brother’s back to hold him up, help him move. Sam winces and leans harder into him, the trembling funneling through his body and into Dean’s, though that could just be Dean, just his own body reacting to something he hasn’t yet dared to process. 

They stop outside the lab and he hisses, “Your pass card, Sam, gotta let us in.” 

With trembling fingers, Sam fumbles his card from his pocket and hands it to Dean. Dean swipes the lock, watching the security light flash from red to green. He pushes the door open and they limp through. 

The lab is empty except for Suzie, peering into a microscope as always. She looks up as they enter, eyebrows going up in confusion. 

“Hey, I thought you guys were out on a mission–“ 

“We were!” Dean snaps, cutting her off. 

He drags Sam towards the doors that lead down to the cages, fumbling for the pass card again. Sam finally seems to wake up, to throw off whatever catatonic trance he’s been in. He pulls away from Dean, staggers, catches himself against the wall. He staggers again, braces himself against it. 

“Dean, no! Whatever you’re thinking – no – you can’t – you–“

Dean ignores the words spilling from his brother’s mouth. He grabs for his uninjured arm, trying to pry him off the wall. 

“Move! C’mon, Sam!” 

But Sam’s gone still, stubbornly refusing to move, setting his feet and not budging. 

“No,” he repeats. “No, Dean. You gotta do it. You should’ve done it already. You promised.” 

“I promised nothing!” Dean retorts. 

“Yeah, yeah, you did. Remember? Three years ago? When we were out there? You were gonna do it. I was in the trap and they were gonna get us and you were gonna–“ 

“That was different!” Dean gives his brother’s arm another tug, but Sam is not moving, shaking his head and pressing his lips together and making that face that means he’s gonna fight this – goddamn him – goddamn his stupid stubborn brother. “And anyway I wouldn’t – I couldn’t..." he trails off, bows his head, feeling the blood pound, his breathing hard and fast. He swears, lifts his head again. “Goddamnit, Sam! C’mon! Move! Now!” 

“No! I’m bit, Dean. I’m bit. I’m gonna change. You have to do it. You have to put a bullet in me. You gotta do it now!” 

_“What? No!”_ Suzie’s voice startles them both. Dean spins around to see her staring at them, gripping the edge of the bench. “Sam is it – are you – bit?” 

Sam nods, his expression stark, defeated. “Yeah. They got me.” Suzie chokes out a sob, bows her head, bangs falling across her eyes to hide her expression. “I’m sorry,” Sam adds. 

Dean turns back to his brother, sees him swallow, tears making his eyes shiny. “Sammy, please. I’m begging you. Please, come with me. I need you to do this. Just trust me.” 

Sam looks at him, and Dean sees the hopelessness and desperation etched into his brother’s face. Finally, Sam nods, giving in. He holds out his hand and lets Dean tug him through the doors. 

The cages seem busier than ever, mutants snarling and screaming, silenced by the sound-proof, bullet-proof glass. They walk side by side down the corridor. Dean reaches down, takes his brother’s hand, and entwines their fingers together. Sam doesn’t resist, and when Dean squeezes his hand, Sam even squeezes back. 

Together, Dean thinks, we’re together. This could be the end – if this doesn’t work – if he’s got it all wrong... 

Then at least they’ll be together; they’ll go out together. It’s all that matters really. 

“Stop! Stop right there!” 

Robinson is standing at the end of the corridor, arms crossed, staring at them with cold hard contempt. 

“Weiner radioed me. He said you’d gone psycho, Winchester. You fucked up the entire mission. You fucked up everything. You’re done for here.” He turns and spits off to one side. “You two…” his eyes run over them, lingering on the place where they’re holding hands, where Sam’s leaning heavily into Dean. “You make me wanna puke. Fucking pair of inbred perverts. I thought you were okay, Sam, but you’re as perverted as your brother.” 

“Give us the code to one of these cells,” Dean says. 

Robinson sneers harder and shakes his head. “Go fuck yourself, pedo. Or go fuck your brother. You like that, don’t you?” 

Dean slides his .45 out his holster, takes aim, and shoots. The bullet smashes into Robinson’s right kneecap, and he goes down, crumpling to the floor and screaming in agony. 

“Oh my God! Dean – what the fuck did you do?” Sam cries, wrenching his hand from Dean’s grasp and stumbling forward. 

“He got what he deserved,” Dean says flatly. 

He sees Sam shake his head, mouth open and close in shocked disbelief. “I can’t believe that you! Jesus Christ, Dean!” 

Dean ignores him. He takes a couple of steps forward to loom over Robinson, the guy rolling and writhing in pain on the disgusting floor. 

“You gonna give us the code now or shall I put the next one in your head?” 

Robinson pants, words seeping through clenched teeth: “You – you – wouldn’t fuckin’ dare!" 

“Oh, I would. My brother’s been bit. You think I care about anything right now?” 

He can see the oh-shit realization register on Robinson’s face, the false bravado fade away until he’s shaking, blubbering: “Okay, okay.” 

Dean clicks off the safety on his gun. “I’m waiting, asshole.” 

“One, two, three, four,” he gasps. 

Dean raises his gun again. “Is that a joke? ‘Cause I ain’t joking, sweetheart.” 

“No, no, I promise, I swear it’s true!” Robinson pleads. “I - I didn’t change it, the password for my computer is password, I just – I can’t remember things.” 

Dean turns around, looks at his brother. “Is he telling the truth?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I think so. One, two, three, four, seriously?” Sam lets out a high, incredulous laugh. 

“Jesus,” Dean snorts contemptuously. “So fuckin’ dumb.” 

He grabs onto Sam again, Robinson completely forgotten as he drags his brother towards the nearest empty cell. Sam doesn’t fight back, a resigned set to his face and mouth. He keeps one arm around Sam’s shoulders as he keys in the access code. The door swishes open and he pushes Sam inside, following in quick after him. 

The door snaps closed behind them. 

Sam stumbles around and gapes at him. He shakes his head, his mouth scrunching up like discarded paper. 

“Dean, no, they don’t – they don’t open from the inside.” 

“I know.” 

“No, Dean, you don’t get it. You’re locked in here! Robinson won’t let you out, not after what you did! You’re locked in here with me, and I’m gonna change.” 

“I know that, Sam.” 

He can see the tears now, see them rolling down his brother’s face, messy and dirty and no different from when he was four years old. 

“Dean, please, you can’t – you can’t do this.” 

“It’ll be okay. We can fix this,” he says simply. Before Sam can protest, he holds up a hand. “I’m gonna call Cas.” 

“What? No! Dean, Cas ain’t listening anymore! We don’t even know if he’s still alive! They left! They all left us!” 

“No, no – listen, Sam. All those dreams I’ve been having. Last night, what I dreamed! It was Cas and he was trying to tell me something. He’s still out there, he’s still watching us. I _know_ he is. And he’ll – he’ll come. This time he’ll come.” 

He bores his eyes into Sam’s, trying to get him to see, to believe. He knows now, he can feel it. What Cas was trying to tell him. They’re not alone, not abandoned. And he will come. Sam will be okay. 

Sam holds his gaze, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Sammy, it’ll be okay,” he tells him. He tries to smile, weak but reassuring, he moves forward to cradle his brother’s face, thumb away his tears. 

Sam closes his eyes, leans into Dean’s hands, eyelashes feathery against Dean’s fingers. “Okay,” he whispers, “okay, Dean, do it.” 

Dean takes a breath, presses a kiss to his brother’s forehead. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, Sammy.” He drops his hands from Sam’s face, takes a couple of steps back and squeezes his eyes shut. He tries to visualize Castiel, remember all those last-minute reprieves they’ve had over the years thanks to the angel, all those times he’s come through for them. 

He can’t fail them now. Not now. 

“Cas – Castiel, it’s Dean, we – uh – we need you, man. I’m not asking you to fix the world or do anything about those mutant motherfuckers, this is just for us. For Sam. This is a personal thing, man. I’m begging you. Please, Cas, we need you. You gotta –“

“It’s okay, Dean.” 

He snaps his eyes open, not quite daring to believe that it worked. Their own version of a Hail Mary pass. But it’s Castiel, it’s really Cas. Standing right in front of them and wearing that trench coat, that same damn trench coat; blinking and looking around the small disgusting cell with a disconcerted expression on his face.

“Jesus, I wasn’t sure you’d come. What the fuck’ve you been doin’ all this time?” he breathes. 

Castiel levels his gaze on Dean. “I’ve been trying to contact you for a long time, Dean. But the lines of the communication between heaven and earth are not as simple as they once were. Much has changed. Heaven is – not as it used to be. However, I gather you called me here for a reason. What can I do for you, Dean?” 

Dean gulps, jerks his gaze to his brother. Sam’s staring incredulously at Castiel, a faint spark of hope flittering across his face. 

“It’s Sam. You gotta fix Sam. He was bit. By a mutant. If you don’t – if – he could change. You gotta stop it.” 

Castiel narrows his eyes and turns to regard Sam. 

“ _Please_ ,” Dean pleads, his voice breaking over the word. 

When Castiel finally answers he sounds genuinely regretful. “I’m sorry but I can’t reverse what has been done. This isn’t something I can do.” 

“Can’t or won’t?” Dean spits. 

“Both.” He turns his head, looks directly at Dean, blue eyes burning. “Dean, listen to me. You must have faith. Both of you must have faith.” 

“Faith! What the fuck use is faith? We should just kill ourselves now! Put a bullet in each other’s heads before we both change!” 

“No, no! You must not do that!” Castiel interrupts. He takes a step forward, hesitates, caught in the tiny cell. He widens his eyes, his expression getting intense, even more intense, voice deeper, imploring. “It is crucial to the survival of the human race that you do not do that! Listen to me. Sam, Dean, do not give in, both of you. Do not kill yourselves.” 

“I’m going to change,” Sam murmurs desperately from the corner where he’s slumped down to the floor, his bitten arm cradled against his chest. 

Castiel turns to him and softens his tone. “Sam, if you ever valued me as a friend before then listen to me now: have faith, do not give in.” He looks up, meets Dean’s hostile gaze. “You think I have abandoned you both all this time, but I haven’t. It’s true that I have been unable to act directly. What happened here was of your own doing and we could do nothing to reverse it. But I have followed you. I have followed this colony and I have followed you both. What you’re doing here is good work. It is righteous work. But you two are important. This colony cannot survive without you.” He holds out his hands in appeal. “Dean, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you. You must protect your brother at all costs. Sam is special. You are both special, there is a reason you are still here. Trust me on this. Just – have faith. Both of you.” 

Dean’s about to respond, mouth open to retort about just where Cas can cram his fucking faith when the angel vanishes. 

“Shit! Motherfucker! Goddamn him! God fucking –“ 

“Dean! Dean!” Sam interrupts, clambering to his feet. He falls against Dean, fingers locking around his forearm. “Dean, don’t you hear what he said? Don’t you get it?” 

“Hear what? That you’re special? That we’re special? We’ve heard all that crap before, Sammy!” 

Sam smiles, a small tentative quirk of his lips. “No, no. That’s not what it means. That’s not what he meant. I’m gonna be okay, Dean. I’m not gonna change.” 

“Sam, no." He shakes his head, trying to pull his arm from his brother’s grasp. “He didn’t say that. Sam–“ 

“Croatoan,” Sam insists. “Remember Croatoan, Dean? I got infected with that virus. Do you remember? You stayed with me like a stupid dumbass, you refused to leave me. But it was okay – _I_ was okay in the end. I had immunity because my blood was different. Everything that Yellow Eyes did to me, the demon blood. It gave me immunity.” 

“That was a demon virus, that was demon crap. This is different – this – the mutants–“ 

“It’s been forty six minutes!” Sam blurts. 

Dean blinks, stares into his brother’s face. The change takes between twenty minutes to an hour. He’s never known it to be longer than an hour, never less than twenty minutes. Forty six minutes. If Sam – if he – if he holds out for another fourteen minutes.

He twists his arm from his brother’s grip, makes fists in his blood-stained camo jacket, and yanks him in. Sam falls into him, breath squeezed from his chest as their bodies collide. Dean tussles, pulls him closer, the two of them sinking to the floor in a messy sprawl of arms and legs and panted incoherent words. 

He pushes Sam onto his back and looms over him, his fingers still knotted tight in Sam’s jacket. Slowly he untangles them, smoothes his palms down Sam’s front, straightening his shirt, then he leans in and kisses him. 

Sam surges up into it. He grips Dean’s shoulders, pulling him in so tight that the bones of their bodies grind together. Dean lets himself go; he wants to suffocate in Sam. If this is the end then he wants to go out like this, with Sam under him and around him, the only thing he can see for miles. 

He slides his hands off his brother’s body, plants them palm-side down on the floor either side of his head and gazes down at him. Sam looks flushed, debauched, razor-burn and a wild kinda crazy in his eyes. 

“I wanted to fuck you when you were fourteen,” Dean says. 

“What?” 

He grins, wicked and self-deprecating. “You were fourteen, you were so scrawny. You were like five foot of nothing and I wanted you so much. I used to fantasize about putting you across my knee and spanking your cute little ass till it was red raw, till your skinny little cock was leaking all over my jeans. You should know that.”

“Jesus,” Sam breathes, “why the fuck didn’t you?” 

He lets out a harsh bark of a laugh, bitter and amused. “’Cause it was wrong, ‘cause I hated myself. ‘Cause I knew I was one sick puppy. No one should want that with their little brother.” 

“The first time I wanted you I was ten,” Sam responds. “I used to spy on you in the shower and I used to think about getting in there with you. My first wet dream was about you.” 

Dean looks down at him and smiles, soft and affectionate. He brushes the hair back off Sam’s face. “Well, you always were an early-starter. Such an overachiever, Sammy.” 

Sam shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. Hey, Dean.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Get offa me. My leg’s fucking killing.” 

He helps Sam remove the prosthetic, doesn’t let himself think about anything as his fingers work through the familiar motions, loosening and sliding off the straps and fastenings. He doesn’t let himself think about how this could be the last time he does this for his brother. 

They sit together after that, Sam leaning against him, head pillowed on Dean’s chest. Dean places one hand on his brother’s thigh, curls his fingers around the end of his stump, swallowed up in the baggy combat pants. 

“I wish things could’ve been different,” he murmurs. 

Sam snorts, derision and genuine humor in the sound. “Yeah, you and me both.” 

Dean turns his face to nuzzle at his brother’s neck, bury his nose in the soft wisps and curls of hair. “I mean with your leg. I wish we could’ve – if we could’ve gotten you one of those modern prosthetics. You know, like you used to see those Special Olympics athletes using, something that actually fucking fit you right and meant that you could still – that you could–“ he takes a breath, feels the words sticking in his throat. “I’ve missed you out there. It wasn’t the same.” 

“Nothing’s the same,” Sam says. 

They both go silent again. Dean closes his eyes, listens to Sam breathing, feels his chest rising and falling, his heart beating steadily under his palm. It’s uncomfortable sitting like this, Sam’s weight pressing him back into the disgusting bloodstained wall, and there’s some part of him that vaguely recalls that they’re on camera, that Robinson and Wiener and all those other sonsofbitches can see them like this and are probably watching right fucking now; well, probably not Robinson, not after what he did to him. But still, so much for discretion. 

He opens his mouth against Sam’s neck, feels the rapid flutter of his brother’s pulse under his lips. He kisses him again, tasting his sweat. Please, he thinks, please be right, Sammy. Please don’t leave me. 

“Fifty eight minutes,” Sam announces. 

His eyes snap open, and he tenses, tightens his hold on his brother. It’s not gonna happen, he thinks wildly. It’s not gonna happen. That’s what Cas meant, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Sam will be okay, he’ll have immunity. His blood. Sam is special. 

“Kiss me,” he pleads, “Sam, kiss me.” 

They kiss, and kiss, and kiss. He’s unaware of time, unaware of the outside world, the security cameras, only his brother, his brother’s mouth. If Sam is going to change, if Sam is wrong, if Cas’s cryptic bullshit means something else, if this is it then he’s not going to be the first to let go. He’s not. 

Sam tries to pull away and Dean resists, clutches tighter, murmurs something desperate and unintelligible, but Sam is trying to say something too, his voice choked up. 

“Seventy – seventy-four minutes,” Sam croaks. “And it’s – the bite – look, Dean!” He fumbles with his sleeve, pushing it up his arm, exposing the mark where the mutant bit him. “It’s fading. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.” 

Dean stares down at his brother’s arm, then back up into his face, into his flushed cheeks and shining eyes, clammy, sticky lashes stuck in clumps, his bruised mouth and the razor burn all over his chin and lips. 

“You’re immune. That’s what Cas meant. You’re immune.” 

“I’m gonna be okay, I’m really gonna be okay,” Sam murmurs, half disbelieving. 

“Yes! Yes, you are,” Dean insists. “Like you said. The blood, Sam. The fuckin’ demon blood. Just like Croatoan!” 

Sam laughs, his body shaking, trembling. “We gotta tell someone. We gotta let them know. I have to research this; I have to see what’s there – in my blood. The vaccine, Dean – it’s not just a pipedream anymore! We can really do this!” 

“Yes!” Dean cries, joining in his brother’s crazy, incredulous laughter. He turns and raises his hands to Sam’s face, fingers spanning his cheeks, thumbs on his jaw, forefingers grazing his cheekbones. “You _are_ special, Sam. All this time, you were right! You can figure out the vaccine. You can save us.” 

“So, we’re gonna stay? We’re gonna see this through?” 

“We ain’t going anywhere!” He leans in, presses a quick kiss to Sam’s lips, then he pulls away, fumbles at his utility belt for his switched-off radio. 

Sam stills him, places his hand on Dean’s wrist, curling his fingers around it. Dean raises his eyes to his brother’s face; sees the slow, dawning smile. 

“Not just me, Dean. Both of us. You and me, man. _We_ can do this. We can figure it out – how to kill them – how to save everybody. But I can’t do it without you.” 

“You don’t gotta. Anyway, don’t we always solve the case? Get the bad guy?” he says, smirk edging at the corner of his mouth. 

Sam licks his lips, smile widening. “Yeah, I guess we do. But, oh shit, Dean, what about Robinson? What about the mission? What will Sanders say?” 

Dean bites his lip, glancing down at the radio in his hand. He guesses he really screwed the pooch there. Did he seriously shoot Robinson in the kneecap? Fuck. Sanders will not be happy, one of his commanders going rogue like that, not to mention the way he abandoned Sagna and the rest of Gold Team back in the forest, or the fact that his and Sam’s relationship is probably compound common knowledge by now, thanks to their little on-camera floor-show earlier. 

But on the other hand, is Sanders – is anybody – really gonna give a crap about any of that when they hear what they’ve just discovered? 

Sam is immune. Sam got bit and he didn’t change. 

This isn’t just about him and Sam anymore. This could change everything. 

“He’ll get over it,” he says finally. “And I – uh – I guess I can apologize to Robinson.” He makes a face and sees Sam’s mouth twitch a little at the corners, his little brother eying him with that familiar and indulgent look, the one that’s all, _my brother’s such a loser but I totally love him anyway_. Dean knows that look and Sam’s not fooling anyone. 

“Yeah, you should do that. Jesus, Dean. Sometimes you." He breaks off, shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable.” 

Dean grins at him, flashing his teeth. “I like to think so.” 

“Go on. Just radio it in. I am so ready to get out of here.” 

Dean nods, flicks the switch on his radio, watching it crackle to life. He puts it up to his mouth and speaks, eyes locked on his brother’s face, on that goddamn beautiful smile. 

“Come in, Command, this is Red Leader. Come in, Command. You’re gonna want to hear this.” 

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks and appreciation to my fantastic beta, gategirl7 for her help with spelling, grammar and ameri-picking. Also special thanks for her digging me out a plot-hole and answering my questions re character motivation and plot and other such things! Thanks also to daggomus_prime for her amazing art-work which can be found here: http://daggomus-prime.livejournal.com/26629.html 
> 
> This fic is dedicated to my dearly missed friend and beta, andreth47 who was the one who said yes! yes! yes! you must write that! when I vaguely floated the idea of writing something set in a dystopian future with ravenous mutants and the boys stuck on a military base. She pushed me out of my comfort zone and I would never have even started this fic without her initial inspiration and enthusiasm. I really hope that I did her proud <3


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